Despite the trickle charger being in use full time recently, the battery is finally gone to its final resting place. Is the replacement something exotic or is it a simple switch. It seems like every time I go to my main service provider I get a $400 minimum. Is this something anyone can do or is it a specialist project? The battery looks like any old battery, but I'm not very mechanical.
Thanks,
Bill

 

Bill,

I think there are some standard, high quality batteries you can use. I haven't replaced mine yet (P.O. did it recently), but I have noted somewhere that a Sears Diehard #33348, group 48 will fit. Take that as hearsay.

 

Battery swap is a piece of cake. I went with the Optima Redtop. Try searching in the 993 forum on battery & you'll find plenty of info.

 

Can I ask a follow-up question? Would it make sense to try to keep the trickle charger on the cables while you switch to prevent the reset of the readiness codes? Would that work?

 

+1

Optima redtop goes right in no problem. I got mine at costco for $110 or so.

 

Costco also has a great return policy with no questions asked.

What about my question about the readiness codes?????

 

Not sure what the answer is Steve. I had 0 issues when I swapped my battery, other than reseting the stereo clock. But then again I have an OBD1 car.

 

Steve - there is a mail order vendor (starts with auto. . . - I know big help) that I had bookmarked at one point but can't find right now that sells a little thing that plugs into your cig lighter and has a 9V battery at the other end for the specific purpose of maintaining codes (radio, etc) during battery changes. You could probably whip up yer own.

edit - see http://www.autosportcatalog.com/index.cfm?fa=p&pid=52

 

If you have access to one of those booster packs used for jump starting, they usually have a socket for a cord that can plug into your cigarette lighter and save your memory. If it does not have one of these adaptors you can carefully attach the positive cable of the booster pack to the rearmost section of the car's positive cable that you can so it doesn't get in the way of attacthing it to the battery, and attach the negative cable of the booster pack to a good ground. Or you could buy one of the 9V battery memory savers that are commonly available, but I'd rather have a full 12V saving the memory . . . just make sure that you get an adaptor for the battery vent hose for whichever battery you get, this is very important as it will help prevent corrosion. Oh yeah also use those little felt pads that go around the battery terminals under the cables.

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Chris Andropoulos
Schneider Autohaus
Santa Barbara, CA