Replaced 12v battery with Optima

I know many of your have already done this but I thought I would post about my experience.

After nearly 4yrs of driving on the stock 12v battery and thoroughly abusing it with my rather large stereo system (high wattage) I figured it was time for an upgrade. I've had it go dead on me a total of 6 times throughout its lifetime and after the last event I felt it was time. Considering it almost made me late for a doctors appointment helped seal the deal.

I ordered the battery from eLearnAid.com for a reasonable price. I realize I could have pieced the install kit together myself but I just wasn't in the mood to spend a day tinkering around with cables and walking back and forth to the parts store. I got it delivered to my door for $169.34 and it only took 2 days to ship and came well packaged.



Installation was a breeze! I performed the install at school while waiting for a classmate to arrive to start our stream survey. It took approx. 20min and that is only because I had a hard time shifting the black plastic cargo box, that covers the spare tire, out of the way due to multiple amplifiers and wiring. The instructions supplied with the kit were very thorough but I found that I was just doing the battery swap 3 steps ahead of my friend who was trying to read them to me.

After tighening all of the nuts and bolts, I fired up the car and got the standard warning triangle. I powered the car down then powered it back up again and the triangle was gone and everything worked great. As a bonus I have a sneaking suspicion my MPG may have gone up as well but since I currently have a bottle of injector cleaner in the tank AND I installed a new air filter I cannot be certain what caused the jump in MPH.

Sorry if this was not real informative but when I was searching for battery replacements I was a bit wary of purchasing from eLearnAid.com but after their prompt service I would definately recommend this kit for anyone who needs to replace their battery and doesn't have the time or inclination to piece together their own kit. :rockon:

 

Sure thing.

Since the 12v doesn't actually start the Prius, the Optima yellow top was an obvious choice. My stereo is just too hard on a standard tiny battery so I'm hoping this one will take the abuse in stride.

 

I didn't have the time to run a diagnostic on the battery because I had people waiting on me.

 

Nope. What few parts you need are included in the kit.

 

Why do you have to disassemble it? There is only 1 nut that holds it to the positive battery terminal and that unscrewed rather easily. Once that piece is disconnected the rest is a snap. Just make sure you put the positive battery terminal on correctly. Since the terminal opening is tapered I messed up and was putting it on wrong (it was SUPER tight) until someone made me aware of my mistake so I flipped the terminal over and it slide right on.

 

Good to hear you eventually got what you needed. Shipping can be a pain sometimes.

With the kit supplied by eLearning takes care of the issue with the positive battery terminal. In fact, it is such an easy swap that you are not doing any real extra work than you would installing an OEM battery. You simply remove 1 extra screw that connects the positive battery terminal to the distribution block (the piece under the red plastic cover).

Since the 12v battery is not used for engine cranking purposes I felt a higher capcity deep cycle battery would give me bettery performance over the long haul compared to the stock unit. This has a lot to do with my stereo system and the depands it places on the battery.

 

Ahh. I wonder if others have a similar problem.


I bet Billy Mays sells something that would have loosened it for ya!

 

I thought that was how you were supposed to do it? I took that whole assembly off before removing the positive battery terminal as the last step. Maybe that is why it came right off for me?