Tom57

Why wouldn't you take the battery back to Lexus since it's a Lexus battery?

tradosauru

Nearest Lexus dealer is an hour and half drive. I assumed since Toyota makes Lexus that Toyota could do the warranty work.
The Toyota tech said Lexus doesn't reimburse them for warranty work.

tradosauru

I haven't called Lexus yet but am expecting them to tell me that they have to install it for a fee.

After reading a ton of reviews on car batteries I'm probably going with the Everstart Maxx from Wal-mart since I have a local store near me. Seems to get good reviews from Consumer reports and is almost half the cost of a top of the line battery anywhere else.

tradosauru

I called Lexus in Shreveport (nearest one to me) and they said if the battery tested bad that it would fall in the 50% pro-rated so a $160 battery would then be about $90 after taxes.
So either way when i replace the battery I will just buy the Everstart Maxx for about $115.00.
Good news is that after buying a better Voltmeter the battery tested to 12.70 V. The voltmeter I bought has a battery check option and it said it was good.

Jabberwock

Good plan. Premium cost batteries with zillion month pro-rated warranties are generally a bad plan - they are actually less than worthless... the long pro-rated warranty period is nothing more than a scam to lock the consumer into buying another high profit margin battery (when the first one fails in month xx) by having them pre-pay a price premium on initial purchase.


Instead look for a battery sold with full replacement 36 month or longer warranty....full replacement has actual value. Costco, Sams, Walmart sell decent 36 month full replacement batteries.

PERRYinLA

Thanks to the OP for posting the procedure.
I had to remove and clean my battery today because it went dead (had it parked in garage too long) and while recharging, it appears that my trickle/float charger heated the battery and acid leaked out of the top holes, and drained down onto my garage floor.
Never seen that before on a 800 milliamp charger.

My own observations:

1) Those two attachments on the side of the cover that hold the positive wires are a pain to remove. And not the best design choice- they could have been attached to the battery tray, not the cover. As if they need any support at all in that area - in just a few inches they join the harness, anyway. I took a small screwdriver and lifted the locking tabs so they can just slide out.

2) While researching what to do on other web pages, I saw multiple mentions that, to reduce sparking, it is best to remove the ground connector first, then the positive connector. And reverse the order when re-connecting.

3) The battery tray has numerous drain channels and the bottom has a hole that butts up against a ~5" plastic drain hose that empties somewhere within the plastic inner fender. I'd rather see the hose routed all the way down to the bottom of the car, but I guess it's not critical if all that the acid can contact is plastic. Speaking of bad design, the tray is held down by 3 bolts - all with the same thread, but 2 bolts have 10mm heads, and the bolt on the passenger side has a 9mm head!

4) Battery acid + polished concrete garage floor = permanent etching. It ain't smooth no mo' !