How To - Change The Car Battery On Your PT Cruiser

Here is a guide for you on how to change the battery on your PT Cruiser. This guide only applies to petrol models as the diesel PT Cruisers have the battery under the passenger seat (and not in the engine bay).

To start with, the original specs of the Chrysler OEM battery:

Part Number: 04671579AB
BCI Group Size Classification: 26R
Cold Cranking Amperage: 510
Reserve Capacity: 92 Minutes
Ampere Hours: 50
Load Test Amperage: 255
Physical Dimensions: 200mm wide / 180mm high / 170mm deep

Halfords sell three different types of car battery that are suitable for the PT Cruiser, they are:

• Halfords Lead Acid Battery HB075 - £76.99 (520 amps / 3yr warranty)
  
• Halfords Calcium Battery HCB075 - £86.99 (540 amps / 4yr warranty)
• Bosch Silver Car Battery HSB075 - £99.99 (600 amps / 5yr warranty)

Which one you choose is down to personal preference, all three exceed the OEM battery specs so I think it's safe to say as with most things in life, you get what you pay for when it comes to this sort of thing.

Fitting is a relatively straight forward job, the only tools you'll need are 8mm, 10mm and 13mm sockets or spanners and it'll take you about 15 minutes from start to finish. Be sure to have the radio security code to hand as you'll need it when you reconnect the new battery.

Unfortunately (and the reason for this guide), Chrysler decided to hide the battery away under the air filter system for the car which means you'll have to take quite a few things apart to get to it. Don't be put off by this though, as mentioned above, it is a very straight forward job.

You can click on any photo in this guide to enlarge it.

Your battery is hiding under here:



To get to it, use your 8mm socket and slacken off the jubilee clip which holds the air intake pipe to the air filter box:



Once slackened, rotate the jubilee clip 10 degrees to the right, following the rubber location pin:



With the jubilee clip now in the right place, pull the large intake pipe off and undo the two clips holding the air box lid on:



You can now lift up the front of the air box lid and remove it. There are three lugs at the back of the air box, be careful not to snap them off when removing the air box lid:



Lift out the air filter and pull off the oil breather pipe on the left hand side of the air filter box:



You now need to remove the air filter box itself.

The air filter box simply lifts straight upwards. There are two lugs on the bottom of the filter box which push into two rubber bungs so it can be a bit tight and some force will be needed, but there is nothing else holding it in place so just give it a sharp pull upwards.

With the air box removed, you'll see the two lugs that were holding it in:



Now with the air box removed, you can undo the battery cables. Use your 10mm socket and be sure to undo the negative cable first, then the positive cable. Tuck them safely out of the way so they don't spring back and touch the battery terminals again:



With the battery completely disconnected, you can now undo the 13mm bolt holding the battery clamp in place:



The battery will now lift out. Be careful when removing it as you don't want the teminals to touch the body of the car.

With the old battery removed, simply reverse procedure this procedure to fit your new battery.