Home Diagnosis and TroubleshootingBattery and Charging How To Disconnect Car Battery – All The Different Ways

How To Disconnect Car Battery – All The Different Ways

by Jordan Harris
How To Disconnect Car Battery

Have you ever wondered how to disconnect car battery? If this is the case, then you are at the right place because there will be a lot to cover on this topic where we will dissect everything in detail.

Having a problem like this for every beginner can be a real pain to deal with. Mostly because beginners do not know how these batteries look in the first place and also don’t know where these batteries are located. That’s why it is often useful for you to learn these basic things and get a good grasp of knowledge before you decide to pull something off.

Since if you make a mistake, a lot of bad things can happen. This is why you need to research first and do the job later. This is how you are going to be safe from doing unwanted things and damaging some components on your car. Start by looking at how to disconnect battery diagram first. There are a ton of images like this on the web where you can study this. But we are going to help you out.

First, we are going to learn what is a car battery and why it is so important for you and your car. Then we will learn how it works and where it is located. Then we will learn the things to consider before you remove the battery and after this, we will guide you through the process of how safely disconnect a car battery and how properly disconnect a car battery. Lastly, we will answer some common questions. So, if you want to learn more, follow along.

What Is A Battery?

Now before we dive into learning how to disconnect a car battery and how to disconnect a car battery to reset the computer, let’s first learn more about the basics and that is what is a car battery in general? Knowing this stuff for you as a beginner will be extra useful. If else, you can jump to one of the following chapters. If not, keep up with us for a bit longer.

So, what is a car battery? First, don’t get confused with modern electric cars, we are not talking about the same types of batteries. These are lithium-ion batteries. In this article, we discuss lead-acid batteries.

The lead-acid battery design is even older than the actual automobile. Lead-acid technology has been with us for more than a century. They were first patented by a French physicist named Gaston Plante in 1859.

And this design of batteries still lasts and will not go away anytime soon. Perfect from the beginning as they would say. This is one of the components that after more than one century haven’t changed a lot. It still serves the purpose of starting our cars every day and allowing us to go to work, to be free to do whatever we like in simple words.

But have you ever wondered how the car battery works in practice? Knowing this stuff is really essential before we you dive into how to disconnect car battery and how to safely disconnect a car battery. And that we are going to cover next.

How Does The Battery Work

Now before we dive into how to disconnect a car battery, let’s learn how a car battery works in practice. We will not dive into complex chemistry, we will discuss the most essential facts for you as a car owner.

The battery is a plastic container basically. In this container you have six different cells, each cell contains an anode and a cathode. These are lead plates. Then all of them are connected and work as one unit.

Inside the battery, there is a sulfuric acid that does this process. Thus the name lead-acid technology.

At both ends, the battery has one terminal. A positive terminal and a negative terminal. One is a ground connection and the red one is the power.

The terminals when connected to the alternator and the starter make your car able to start and hold a charge. The alternator is the one component that is charging the car battery while the starter spins the crankshaft and starts the engine. Both of them along the battery are extremely crucial when it comes to the ability to start. If one of them is off, your car is basically not able to start at all.

The average power that your battery should deliver is 12 volts. This level of power is essential if you want to keep steady work. If the level of the battery is below the recommended. You will have problems with starting the car and turning on the accessories.

Overall, this is the most important information that you should know. And now before we cover how to disconnect car battery for storage, or how properly disconnect a car battery. Let’s cover more about where this battery is located in your car.

Where The Battery Is Located?

Now before we cover how to disconnect car battery. Let’s see where the car battery is located? What are the main locations that are used by different carmakers to store the batteries? Let’s elaborate.

The main battery location in most of the cars out there is in the engine bay. Usually, the battery is mounted on the driver’s or passenger’s side. Depending much on where the carmaker has decided to install it.

On some luxury car brands like BMW or Mercedes Benz, you will find the battery in the rear trunk. The battery is hidden under the trunk liner and you have to remove it to access it to remove the positive terminal.

Some carmakers like Dodge have decided to install the car battery in some weird places that you will never guess where the battery is. Namely in the Dodge Avenger and the Chrysler 200, the battery is hidden left front wheel well.

You will basically have to remove the wheel and the fender liner to access the battery. That’s why sometimes finding this device can be extremely tricky.

But let’s say that you have found the battery. Now how to disconnect car battery? We will get to that in a moment, now before that let’s see what are the reasons why would you want to remove the car battery.

Reasons Why You Would Want To Do This

Now before we learn how to disconnect car battery, let’s learn what could be the possible reasons why you would want to disconnect the battery in the first place. What are the possible reasons for this action that you plan to do? Let’s elaborate.

The first and most obvious reason is probably that you want to reset the car computer. A lot of people have trouble with the check engine light flashing for no reason and they just want to do a quick fix.

And can it get simpler than removing the positive terminal and letting the car computer reset? Sadly, though, this doesn’t always help and in most cases, you will get a check engine light again. Only proper diagnostics could solve the matter permanently.

The second probable reason that someone would like to disconnect the car battery is in order to keep it for winter storage. Imagine that you have a car that you don’t drive a lot and keeping your battery safe for the winter might be an excellent idea.

How To Disconnect Car Battery

Since in wintertime car batteries usually suffer the most and often tend to fail. But how to disconnect car battery for storage? Well, that’s what we are going to cover later in the article.

And the third probable reason si that the car battery simply doesn’t hold power and you want to just replace it with a new unit. You don’t need an unreliable car battery that could leave you stranded somewhere on the side of the road.

Replacing the car battery in some cases only as a precaution is an excellent idea. But how to disconnect car battery? Well, that’s we are going in a bit. Now let’s learn how long to disconnect to reset the computer.

How Long To Disconnect Battery To Reset Car Computer

Now before we learn how to disconnect car battery, let’s learn how long to disconnect battery to reset computer.

Considering that a lot of people out there are only trying to find a way to reset the car computer by removing the positive terminal, we decided to create a separate chapter only for this question. And what is the real answer to this question? How much time to leave it disconnected?

Well, that really depends much on the car itself. Some cars do not need much since they run a lot of accessories that will drain the electricity in the system in a second. While some of them require a bit more time to get all the electricity cleared from the system.

Leaving it unplugged for 5 to 10 minutes is the average time that you want to leave your car without power so the computer has reset itself.

You can also try to remove the terminal and turn on some of the accessories inside like the dome lights and the radio to speed up the process. They will drain the power from the system very easily. Then you can plug the battery terminal back onto the battery and see if it worked. If it didn’t repeat the procedure.

But have you asked yourself what are the things that you need to consider before you remove the positive terminal from the battery? And frankly, there is a lot of things that you need to take into consideration before you do this on your car. In the following chapter before we explain how to disconnect car battery, we are going to explain precisely that.

Things To Consider Before You Disconnect The Battery

Now before we learn how to disconnect car battery, let’s learn more about the things to consider before you disconnect the battery. And frankly, there is a lot to it. Let’s elaborate.

As you probably know, car batteries have electricity in them. This isn’t a strong current but for sure can harm you. Whenever you are trying to manipulate a positive terminal cable you need to make sure that you don’t have any metal on your hands.

Like a watch, a ring, or another metallic object. Because the positive terminal comes into contact with metal that doesn’t have ground, it will electrocute you. So, beware of this.

The next thing you need to pay attention to is to make sure that you don’t work under bad weather. This means that you need to make sure that you are not touching the terminal with wet hands and is not raining on the battery.

This could cause electrocution as well, in addition to this, it could cause a chemical reaction that will rust out the battery terminals and reduce the contact between the cable and the terminal.

The third thing is to learn how to safely disconnect a car battery. That’s what we are going to cover in the following chapter in depth where we will elaborate on this procedure in detail.

And the last thing to consider will be the risk of losing your radio. Some radios have protection and whenever you unplug the battery, your radio will stop working and will require you to enter a code.

This code can be really hard to find and you just don’t want to deal with this. There are people who are replacing the factory radios on their cars only to sort out this problem with the code that they do not know. So, beware of this possibility.

We explained everything. Now let’s get to the main point and that is how to disconnect car battery. That’s what we are going to cover precisely in the following chapter.

How To Properly Disconnect A Car Battery

Now let’s learn how to properly disconnect a car battery. Knowing this is essential if you are a beginner that doesn’t have the right background or knowledge when it comes to car-related problems like this one. There are a few steps that you will need to follow if you want to achieve this goal.

The first step will require turning off the car and also remove the key from the ignition. This will make sure that none of the accessories fail accidentally if you leave them without power at once.

The second step will require locating the car battery. If it’s under the hood, then pull the hood release that is on your left side A-pillar, sometimes it is mounted on the dash, it is very intuitive.

Or if it’s mounted in the trunk area, remove the cover on top of it and then remove the trunk liner. Then you have the perfect space to work around.

The next thing is to make sure that you don’t have metal objects on your hands and your hands are not wet. This is useful to do as a precaution.

Then you can move to the last step which is loosening the bolt that is holding the clamp. After the clamp is loosened, just wiggle it left and right and remove it from its position. That’s how to disconnect car battery. A very easy thing to do.

How To Disconnect Car Battery For Storage

Now let’s see how to disconnect car battery for storage. Doing this is relatively easy. You just need to follow all the steps that we listed in our guide.

The only thing different you will need to do will be to remove the negative terminal which is the blue one as well. Then remove the bolt that is holding the metal bracket that keeps the battery in place and remove the battery from the vehicle. Then you can store the battery in a temperature-controlled environment for the winter or until the next time you use it.

How To Disconnect A Car Battery To Reset The Computer

Now let’s see how to disconnect a car battery to reset the computer. For this thing, you will have to locate the car battery.

The next thing you want to do is to remove the positive terminal. This is how you reset a car computer. Loosen up the clamp and remove it. Leave it like this to sit for 5 minutes and then plug the battery back in and tighten up the clamp. After this, your computer has successfully been reset.

Check the radio and all the accessories if they are working well. If they do, mission accomplished.

How To Disconnect A Car Battery Without Losing Memory

Now let’s see how to disconnect a car battery without losing memory. How you could pull this off? Well, the answer is really simple.

The first thing you will need to do is to make sure that everything is turned off in your car. No lights on, basically nothing to be working in the car.

Then you will need to get a new battery of a similar size as the old one. Then get some jumping cables. They are essential if you don’t want your car without power.

How To Disconnect Car Battery

Connect the positive and the negative terminals to the terminals of the old battery with the wires. Then remove the positive cable from the battery that you want to remove from the car, then the car will work with the new battery and you will not lose the memory.

Then install a new battery and plug the positive and the negative back in. Lastly, remove the clamps and enjoy the new battery. To pull this off successfully, you will need about 3 batteries.

Conclusion

In this article, we covered quite a bit when it comes to the question of how to disconnect car battery. First, we learned what is a car battery and how does it work. Then we learned the location and the reasons why you would want to disconnect the battery.

Then we learned how to disconnect the car battery from your car to reset the car computer or for winter storage. Lastly, we also learned how to disconnect a car battery without losing memory.

F.A.Q

Now as we covered all that needs covering, let’s answer some common questions.

How To Safely Disconnect A Car Battery

In order to safely disconnect the battery, you need to make sure that you don’t have any metal objects on your hands because they can transfer electricity if they come in contact with the positive terminal. Also, avoid working in wet where there is heavy rain on the car. Water is also a possible cause of accidents when it comes to batteries. Once you meet these standards, just unplug the positive and negative terminals and disconnect the battery.

How To Disconnect A Car Battery To Reset The Computer

In order to reset the car computer, you only need to disconnect the positive terminal. This is the red terminal. The first thing you need to do is to locate the battery and then loosen up the screw that is holding the positive terminal. Then remove it once loosened up. After this step, your computer should be restarted.

How Long To Disconnect Battery To Reset Car Computer

On average, the time needed is only about a few seconds. But you can leave it for about 5 to 10 minutes just in case to be sure that the computer is restarted. You can also try to turn on and off the radio or dome lights to make sure that no power is left in the system. Then plug it back in.

How To Disconnect Car Battery Diagram

For a diagram for your specific vehicle go online and type “make and model and year of production + battery diagram”. You will get a lot of useful results when it comes to the visual diagram of how this is done specifically for your vehicle.

How To Disconnect Car Battery For Storage

Disconnecting a car battery for storage is also easy. The first thing you need is to locate the battery. Then the next step will be to remove the positive and the negative terminal on the battery. Then remove the bracket that holds the battery in place and remove the battery from the vehicle.

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