Good luck with that then. Pay now or pay later.

 

Dealer charged me $550 a couple weeks back, had to be programmed multiple times. Tech i talked to was talking about those who had done a dyi were back soon, cd issues, other electrica lissues, shortened life, etc. Again, your risk, i like knowing it was done properly on a very sophisticated car....especially wth my wife and kids in it.

 

Stealerships, we 12 now? I think it's so funny when adults, I assume you are anyways, use this term. Like OMG! Haha!

 

I went thru the same dilemma a couple of months ago. I decided to do it right and go with the dealer... It cost $450 for the battery with installation.

 

What do you mean that you have to Register the battery? Why?

 

Rather than "sophisticated," I'd probably describe it as unnecessarily complicated. A $150 Garmin does a better job of the Navigation, a Toyota Camry has a better climate control system.... a simple dipstick does a better job than the electronic oil level sensor.... and I'm afraid to use the auto/timed vent control because the battery and charging system is already inadequate.

In any case, I think it is a good ideal to register the battery. Doing a little research and it seems relatively easy. Just need to buy some tools (software/cable). I hate to call them stealerships because many of the employees do work hard to try and give the customers excellent service. I just don't see the value in my local BMW dealerships. $400 of labor for a job where they swap in a battery, hook up a computer, push a few buttons and let it do it's thing seems like a rip-off. I don't mind paying $135/hr of labor if they actually are working at it. Somebody, please correct me if I have this wrong.

 

Hi, I'm Rosia B on behalf of Expert Village. And, we're going to talk about what happens when your car battery dies. To test the battery and the fuses, I'm going to need to use a multimeter. This is not a digital. This is an analog multimeter. You can tell by the needle and the dial which means it's analog. Digital would have a digital read out. It comes with two wire leads, black and red. Red is positive. Black is negative. This little meter can do a lot of different things, but you need to know how to use it. Now, there's an ohm's scale which is ohm times one thousand. And, ohms are a scale of resistance or continuity. For testing fuses, we want to test for continuity, which means continuous electron flow through the fuse like a loop. So, if we turn it to the ohms scale and we touch the wire leads together, the needle goes to the top of the scale. That let's me know that there is continuity or a continuous loop of electricity flowing through the leads. We're going to do this same thing incorporating a fuse into our circuit. Now, if the fuse is good, it will show continuity and the needle will go to the top of the scale. If the fuse is burned, nothing will happen because the electricity is not getting through the fuse which is protecting your car. Let's move on to the main battery fuse and test it. To test the fuse, we're going to take our meter and we're going to put it on either side of the fuse legs which are screwed down into the fuse box. But, if there's a battery connected to the car, there should be twelve hot volts at the fuse which will burn our meter and give us a funny reading. So, we need to disconnect the battery terminal one more time. With the meter on the resistance scale and the meter where you can view the window, take your test leads and attach them to the opposite legs of the fuse. As the needle swings, we can see that there is continuity through the fuse and the fuse is not the problem. With our multimeter, we can also test the battery for voltage. Since we've done all these other checks, and the battery's still not performing, we're going to see if this battery has any voltage in it. With the multimeter set on the fifty volt scale, which is a maximum of fifty volts ranging everything from zero to fifty, twelve volts falls into that range. So, I've got it set on the fifty volt scale for direct current. Batteries supply a direct current voltage. Connect your red meter lead to the positive battery terminal, and the black to the negative battery terminal. Looking for the needle to move, I see about four volts which tells me that this battery is very dead. Moving the selector down to a maximum of ten volts, I can get a more accurate reading of what's in the battery. It appears to have about three volts in it. Which is not nearly enough to start our car. We're going to need a new battery.