MissK's World...

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 ;-)