Alternate replacement Optima battery available in UK

My 12V battery has been getting weaker and weaker, with even one day of sitting idle being enough to make starting a heart-in-mouth process.

I was looking at the price of Optima D51 batteries over here and had been looking at the dimensions of the OEM battery to see if there was another replacement option available. I spotted that Optima type YTS 2.7J is a drop-in replacement: it's the right size and has the correct, Japanese, terminals. The only problem is that the breather pipe doesn't fit; I'm taking a calculated risk and not fitting it (it shouldn't be outgassing anyway).

I bought mine from Optima Yellow Top YT S 2.7J (Japanese Terminals) (8070-176) YTS2.7J - Optima Batteries - Optima Yellow Top Batteries. I got them to do a price match with Max Autoparts: Optima Yellow Top Battery YTS2.7J Max AutoParts who didn't have it in stock.

My battery came with a sliding handle that would get in the way of the hold-down clamp. It's easy to remove it by sliding it right to the bottom then pulling it out of the body, once I'd got it into the rear of the car.

It is a total pain in the backside to replace it: I didn't have a suitable spanner to access the negative terminal bolt directly, so unbolted the other end of the negative cable from the car body. I dropped the screw holding the battery cooling duct to the side of the car, but could pick it up once the old battery was out. I left the fusible link block attached to the hold-down clamp rather than removing the clip as I couldn't get it detached, but it just swings out of the way once the positive battery terminal is unbolted. I didn't have a long enough extension bar to reach the lower bolt on the hold-down clamp, so removed the capacitor bank (brake power supply) temporarily.

 

Perhaps Toyota expect you to have a 300mm extension bar available.

I didn't bother to torque any bolts either - no torque spanner. Just did them up as tightly as I dared (my dad is well known in the family for shearing the heads off bolts by doing them up too tight!)

I had a mild panic after finishing when the hatch wouldn't open. After crawling into the boot to release it manually, and checking it a couple of times, I realised that I'd left the car on - the hatch won't open if the car is READY!