Friday, January 16, 2015

My Equinox Lives Again !!


My battery died a few days ago. It wouldn't hold a charge so I needed a new one, no biggie... 'till it was time to take it out. I worked on many older cars before, but never one this new. They like to hide shit under plastic these days. I mean this should be obvious, right? Well at first, it wasn't :/

Now that I went through it, I wanna roll my eyes at how simple it was. I admit it, I went online for some tips on how to get the battery out. And I found nothing really useful about my specific vehicle. So I figured it out on my own. Which brings me to the following issue. Since no one has posted much of anything worthwhile about this "simple" task, why don't I do it ;-)

So I took a couple picture of my Equinox's engine bay. Then scribbled a few things on them in a way that I would have loved to find, when I looked for some online help. So here it is, in laymen's terms... available to anyone searching for help on such a "trivial" task.

2011 Chevrolet Equinox Battery Basics 101
If you need clear information on the following issues,
inspect the pictures bellow.
Battery Location
Jump Starting Terminals
Battery Removal


Click the pictures for a better look.


2011 Equinox Battery Removal Steps:
1~  Slide off the plastic computer cover exposing 3 large wire connectors.

2~ Unclip the 3 connectors from the computer, label if needed.

3~ Remove the bolt that was hiding behind the middle wires. You can access this bolt if you have the right tools without unclipping the connectors. I took them off because it was very cold (-20C) when I did this. I did not want to put extra stress on the wires. It was easier to take the computer completely out of the way.

4~ Slide the computer off the metal tabs and put in a safe place.

5~ Remove the 2 bolts holding the metal bracket in place. The one towards the firewall is easy. The second one, is harder to get at since it's hiding under a plastic panel. Pop out the plastic faster indicated on the picture to lift the panel just enough to slide your ratchet or wrench in. If I recall correctly, you need 8mm all around.

6~ Remove the battery cables and voila!

7~ Reverse the steps to re-install.

If you find this information helpful, let me know ;-)

9 comments:

tsquared said...

Congratulations, GM has always found interesting places to hide batteries. For my car it is in a storage cubby hole behind the drivers seat.

idahobob said...

That just looks like a real pain in the butt!

;-D

Bob
III

Anonymous said...

I hadn't noticed that when I was looking at that car and I'm glad I went with the RAV4 instead. Should have known to look at stuff like that. I bought my wife a Saturn right hand drive to deliver mail in and when I went put a new battery in it I was in my Sunday clothes so I let the girl at Advance install it -- I'm no chauvinist. ☺ Good thing I did since my hands were way too big to do it. No way to get my hands in there and she barely could and scraped her wrist doing it.

MissK said...

It's like they purposely hide things so more people go back to the dealerships where the labor is almost as much as buying a small island... :P

billf said...

Good job,Missk! Not only are you talented and have enough drive to figure it out,you have the talent to describe the job in pictures (with labels and artwork).Thank God there are still some DIY in the world.
One question,is your daughter like you? Will she be able to do-it-herself ?

show me one socialist success in world history said...

Yeah, great work on the DIY instructions. Ya done good, pretty woman.

angrymike said...

Wow, awesome !!! That is an excellent pictorial and description of how to change a battery in your Chevy !!!!!! If all women would get off their behinds and try stuff like that, I might have gotten married by now...........

MissK said...

Not many people can twist sarcasm with a burn the way you do AngryOne... I like you more everyday... :D
LMAO!! & thanks, I think ;-)

Thanks "show me one socialist success in world history" :-)

Thanks for noticing Billf ;-)
My daughter is very determined and independent, with much to learn still...
On topic, she actually signed up for mechanics class next semester. Which I'm glad about, but kinda surprised me. She is practical ;-)

Unknown said...

I too haven't worked too much on newer cars and so when I bought my latest car I didn't put much thought into the placement on Key components.
I was needing to just find the actual placement of the battery in my 13 Equinox, it wasn't displayed in the owners manual, so of course I came to the web to find out, the first couple pictures I clicked on did not look like my engine compartment, but when I came across your picture I was pleasantly surprised that it matched mine.
You're pictures and directions seem very self explanatory, I will be giving this a whirl later this afternoon, as my battery has died multiple times now, so I need to pull it and head to a part store to get it tested.

Thanks for the tips!!