How to Replace Battery Vent Tube 2001-06 BMW 325Xi

What's up guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video I'm going to show you how to replace the battery vent hose on this 2001 BMW 325xi. If you need this part or other parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1aauto.com.

With the trunk open, over on the right side or the passenger side, there should be a cover that goes right here, this vehicle doesn't have one, but you're going to want to remove that cover. The battery is located right here. First thing I'm going to do is take a 10 millimeter socket and ratchet, loosen up this nut for the negative terminal. When that's loose, slide off the cable, slide it out of the way. With that off, now I can loosen up the positive side. With the same 10 millimeter socket and ratchet, loosen this up, take off the positive cable.

Now the hold down has a little bit of tension on it so you can take a Phillips head screwdriver, loosen up this screw right here. It's just going to release some of the tension. You don't have to take it out or anything, just loosen it up a little bit. Then we can take these two bolts out. Use a 13 millimeter socket extension in a ratchet, take this bolt out and then take the other one out. Take that bolt out. Take this hold down off. Just grab it, put it to the side.

There should be a vent hose that comes off the battery. Disconnect it. I'm just going to grab the handles, slide the battery up. Now I'm just going to remove the old hose, just slide it out, just like that. And there's a grommet right here. You can just grab the grommet and just slide it out, or you could take a pick or a screwdriver, just get in behind there and pull it out. Normally you can get it out with your fingers. Here's the old part. Here's the new battery vent hose from 1aauto.com. That comes with the same fittings for the battery, the same grommet, and then if you have a different style grommet, it comes with that. It comes with the hose. The hose is going to be a lot longer, which is okay, you can just trim it down, just use some scissors. Cut this off and there's plenty of hose. Get yours at 1aauto.com and you'll be ready to rock and roll.

So you want to take the old hose and we're going to hold it up to the new hose. What I'm going to do is just take a marker and just mark right there. That's where I want the hose to go to the outside air. Now if you don't have the hose to compare to, this section right here is 2". So measure 2", make your mark, and then the rest of the hose on this particular vehicle happens to 10.5", so you can check and measure that. Or if you don't feel confident with that being 10", you can always cut the hose once the battery's in there. But since I have the old hose, I'm just going to compare, and just cut the hose now because it'd be a little easier, to about there. Just take some scissors, cut the hose, comes with the new fitting.

So we'll take the fitting, slide the fitting in there. You can just twist it, makes it a little easier. Here we go. There's the hose that's going to go in there. Take the new grommet. Sometimes these are a little bit tricky to get in, so slide that into position, like that. And that actually worked out pretty good, but you could always use a screwdriver to push it in a little bit. Take the hose up to your line, mark it, just like that. And you should have a length to get to your battery. Take the battery, slide it in position, and there should be a spot for the vent. There it is, right there. And if there's a plug in there, you want to pull that plug out. And there should be a plug on this side, so this side has a plug, that side's for the vent. And there's little spacer right here, so make sure the battery is right up to that spacer and you can put the hold down on next, line that up in position, just like that. Take the bolts, get the bolts started and take my 13 millimeter socket and ratchet and just snug these down.

All right, that's good. Now this is loose. I'm just going to use my Phillips head screwdriver, tighten this down a little bit. Don't tighten this too tight. You don't want to squish the battery, just so it has a little bit of tension on it. That's good, just like that. Take the positive terminal. When you're connecting a battery, you always want to connect positive first, opposite of how you take it off. That way you don't arc out anything. So tighten that down with a 10 millimeter socket and ratchet, just snug, not too tight, but make sure the terminal's tight. Then we can take the negative side, connect the negative side. Take the same 10 millimeter socket and ratchet, tighten it up. That's good. At this point, if you had that cover, you're going to want to put the cover back where it goes.

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