Changing the battery on a 2007 VW New Beetle 2.5 L BPS engine, by Wes Clark

I did this 6/30/11 when my car reached 41,000 miles and the battery was telling me in no uncertain terms it was at the end of its useful life.

You will notice that the battery is partially obscured by the driver's side front quarter panel. This will likely be the most difficult and tedious battery change you've ever done, so be patient. It isn't just a matter of pulling two lugs off posts, changing the battery and reinstalling them. It took me just over an hour, but I had to figure out how to do it. And, by the way, the guy at the Auto Zone took one look at it and told me, "Nope... too complicated. We don't do these." Wise man. The battery, by the way, was $137.99. $12 core exchange.

FIRST: Remove plastic lid from atop the battery; there's a snap at front. Remove the nuts from both the positive and negative posts and pry the connectors off the lugs with a screwdriver. Be careful! Once you have the nuts off, the screw part can come loose and fall into the engine, causing you grief. And, worse, they're not ferrous, so you can't use your magnetic thingy to retrieve them. Carefully remove these and stick the battery cables towards the windshield, out of your way.

SECOND: There's a terminal box atop the battery. This slides towards the windshield and lifts away, but not readily. You have to jiggle the part and apply force towards the rear of the car. I secured it out of the way with a bungee cord.

THIRD: There's a plastic housing part that the connector box slides onto - it sits atop the battery. Jiggle and pull straight up and it should come off.

FOURTH: Move that fabric battery cover aside in the front and look down at the bottom of the battery, at the front. You will see a 14 mm bolt holding down a steel clamp. This holds the battery in place. It's a bear to get to, and due to a very tight hand clearance (I have huge hands), you can easily drop the clamp and the bolt down into the engine. So be careful here. You can retrieve both with the magnetic thingy - they're ferrous. Remove bolt and clamp.

FIFTH: Now you're ready to wrestle the battery out of there, no simple task. You need to bring the positive lug side of the battery up just about so the battery is sitting on the plate on the negative side, then you pull up and remove it. Whew. Take off the black fabric thing held on by Velcro and put it on the new battery.

Installation is the reverse of the above steps, of course. Getting the new battery in is a matter of putting it on its side, negative lug side down on the plate, and tilting it into place in the meager space provided. (The boys from Germany did us no favors with this design. My father would insist it's revenge for World War II.) You may be tempted to not put the clamp and bolt back on because it's hard to do, and let the battery sit via gravity. No! Put it back on and do the job right! There is a notch on the clamp part that faces towards the front of the car; it fits into a space provided for it, lettered side up. Now carefully put in the 14 mm bolt. I hope you don't drop these two parts - finding them again is no easy task. I had to get under the car and grope around to retrieve them, swearing all the while.

I read somewhere that if you remove the battery the Central Computer resets the entire car and you have to have a dealership re-initialize the thing. Scary! That didn't happen with me. I had the battery disconnected for just about an hour, and when I put everything back together the car started just fine. When I turned on the Monsoon stereo it initially displayed "SAFE" and then started working. But perhaps you may need to enter the radio code in the paperwork that came with your car, so have it handy.

That's it. Rather straightforward once you know how to do it but a real bear if you don't. You're welcome!