This is the worst engineered piece of crap I've ever seen. No room to see or attach the front and rear hooks. Get one in place and the other one comes loose. I've pulled that battery 3 (now 4) times and tried for 3 hours to get the strap in place and tightened.

The engineer that designed this piece of crap should have been shot! No one can really be this stupid!

 

i dont think i reinstalled mine after running a power wire.

 

I must say that it is not the best design out there but i've seen worse engineering. lol. The key is to tighten the sticks alternately until it's snug in place.

 

While you supply gentle upwards pressure.

 

just make sure you don't let the back post fall down into the engine compartment. There is a plastic undercarriage cover towards the middle of the car that may or may not catch it. It caught mine, and it took quite a while to get it back.

 

Yep, mine dropped down into the plastic tray in the engine bay too and it took FOREVER to find it.

Mine kept slipping out and in the end I had to remove the entire battery tray so I could see where the rear mount was supposed to fit and then I reformed the end of the strap to make it fit better. That worked but it was a real pain. What should have been a 10 minute job turned into over 2 hours of sweating and swearing LOL

 

I'm glad someone brought this up. I lost the front hook for the battery hold down post into the void and spent 1.5hr looking for it. I did not find it. My solution was to by another one for 10 dollars at the dealer. Very poor design!

 

That under-engine cover (while it protects the under carriage of the engine from debris on the road) is a massive PITA to take off, especially for oil filter changes. Dropping a part from above and having it stopped in the cover is ok, but it would be much better if it just fell through to the floor.

 

I purchased the figs engineering hold down and its a beautiful piece. Makes the stock junk look like a joke.

 

While the bottom engine cover is a pain to get off it can help save you. I had a long (like 5 inches) tensioner bolt come loose and work its way out. I would have never known had not the cover caught it and saved it for me until the next time it was removed. I was able to identify it, reinstall and torque thanks to that engine cover. Dealer must have not properly tightened it during the T/B install.

 

It's not bad at all. Just use a hand to keep the rod secure until the bolt is tense enough. And fasten down the rear and fore alternately.

It took me 15 minutes to swap my battery the first time and I'm a really slow worker.

The bar works well and doesn't give you any trouble in the years between battery replacement.

Perhaps OP should consider the glass house he lives in before he hurls stupid rocks. And talks about stupid people getting shot.

 

Wow. Just wow.

 

I've never had a problem replacing my batteries in any car I have owned, including my LS430.

 

For crying out loud. To those here who are acting high and mighty saying there isn't a problem with the battery strap: perhaps you just haven't experienced it. That's rather like saying the door mirror motor is just fine, mine has never failed, it's just as good as the day I bought it so therefore NOBODY else can say there is a problem with theirs.

Well, some of us have had a different experience with the battery tie down and no, it's not (all) user error. The front mount WILL fall through unless you are careful. It would have been ridiculously easy for Lexus to engineer in a bump on the strap so it couldn't fall through the mounting hole but they didn't do that. So, it's fair enough to point it out and to warn other owners.

The rear mount IN MY OPINION is a badly engineered piece that WILL pull out of alignment if it does not precisely fit the undertray molded locator, and it WILL continuously, over and over, pull out of place and will not bolt down. This necessitates removal of the battery tray and reworking the tie down so it doesn't pull out. So, once again, this is worth pointing out to other owners so they know it's not just them.

 

As far as cars go, the LS430 is pretty idiot-proof. And the battery tray is tricky (it was installed incorrectly when I got my car) but it's not too hard to install correctly. If you're trying your hardest, and being as careful as you can be and you mess up the installation, you have no business working on a car like the LS430. Like how the heck are you going to get your brake retainer pins in correctly if you can't do the battery tray?

The design could be better, but what can't be improved? The LS430 could have a 3 liter V12 with VVT-iW that would get better mileage and be smoother than our 3UZs. But that engine would have cost more to manufacturer than the rest of the car combined.

The design succeeds as a light weight way to keep many differently sized batteries secure. It probably is a shared part across multiple models, so it wasn't more tailored to the LS, but that makes the part less expensive and easier to get.

I'm all for warning people this is tricky. But a tricky job doesn't mean the Lexus engineers did a bad job. If you want something idiot proof, go drive a Honda Cub. And if someone can't do this tricky-but-not-very job by themselves, they should know that they really should pay a professional to do everything on the car except maybe the cabin air filter.