How to Replace Battery 2014-17 Subaru Crosstrek

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

Open the door, reach down underneath. There's a little logo here telling you where the hood release is. Pull it down and look for the safety release. It's right here. Push it to the passenger side and put the prop rod. That's the normal position. There's also a service position. It's the prop rod. You could lift the hood up further. Put it in there. Give you more space so you don't hit your head. Before you disconnect your battery, just write down your radio presets so you don't have to try to remember them later.

We're going to start by removing the negative terminal using a 10 millimeter wrench. Loosen the nut here. Usually don't have to thread it all the way off. Just get it loose and then it can wiggle right off. We'll put that aside. Actually pick it up off of this here so it's clipped down. Going to use my 10 millimeter wrench to unthread it. Pull that off and put that aside.

Flip up this cover. It actually unclips. Your main fusible link is here. We're going to disconnect the battery by removing this, 10 millimeter to loosen it. Wiggle that off. This battery tie down is aftermarket, but the original one works in the same way. It'll have a nut on either side, through this long stud which has a hook on it. I'm just going to spray a little bit of rust penetrant on here to help these loosen. I'm going to use a 10 millimeter socket ratchet extension, and I'm just going to loosen them enough so I can get them to unhook from underneath. This one might have to come all the way out, kind of short. Just like that so actually took the whole nut off with it. Just going to put the nut back on there for now so we don't loose it.

Loosen this one up a little bit, but mostly it should just unhook. Slide the battery out a little bit, and I basically just turned the top of this to unhook it. When you're fiddling with this battery tie down it is metal, your two top posts are exposed. You don't want to cross between the two because you create a short, so just be careful when you're taking this off to not touch the positive terminal, and then ground it to the body or the negative terminal on the battery because you will cause a short.

I'm going to lift the battery out of here. Get my hands under it. It's got a plastic cover. Actually, I'm going to slide this plastic cover off first so I can get a better grip on it. Put that aside. I'll reuse it. Battery out of here, get underneath it, lift it out, and we'll dispose of this properly.

Now you can get to the bottom. This plastic tray is under the battery. That's probably just some water. I'm going to clean that up and reinstall it. I'll put the battery tray back down in place. It just has these two pins that line up in the two pins in the frame. Got our new battery. This one has a handle. Place it down in and it fits nicely. If you want you can take the handle off. I'll just take the handle out and reinstall this battery blanket.

I'm going to have to move the battery around a little bit. This is pretty flexible though, so slide it in place. The battery back where it needs to be. Install the battery tie down so this has a hook, and there's a spot on the inside here where it hooks. It's right down in here, and it's going to hook, just kind of turn this a little bit at the same time. It's a little tricky.

There it is. Lay this over. Have to loosen this one up a bit. Make sure that's seated down. Take the nut off of it. This goes down right there, put that through, pull it up, put the nut on here, take our ratchet and socket, and tighten it down. Tighten this one down. Don't have to overdo this. You don't want to crack the battery, but you don't want the battery bouncing around either. Once you feel it get tight, you can just stop. That's good.

I'm going to reinstall the positive terminal. Don't forget to remove the plastic cap here that protects the terminal. If you don't and try and put it on, the car's not going to start, so we're going to pull it right off and place it down over it. I'm using a short 10 millimeter wrench to tighten it. I don't want to touch anything that's grounded, like if I touched from here to here, it would arch and cause a short, so just be careful. Tighten it down. It's nice and tight. I'm going to wipe off the dirt and make it look nice. We'll put our plastic protective cap back on.

Run the negative cable back over. Take the protective cap off the negative side, reinstall the terminal, put that little harness holder back on there, and tighten this down. This is the ground, so if you touch between here and the body, nothing is going to happen. It won't short out because the body is ground.

Reinstall this little guy here. Do a couple turns and it just locks on that stud, and the battery is swapped. Now you need to go inside the car and reset your radio presets.

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