How to Replace Battery 2005-16 Toyota RAV4

What's up guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video, I'm going to show you how to replace the battery on this 2010 Toyota Rav4. If you need parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com.

All right, we want to take this panel off. There's all these pushpins we have to take off. Just take a straight blade screwdriver, just push it in the middle of the pin, and then you can take a trim tool, try to get underneath it and slide it out. We're going to take all of those out. There's one here. Just grab this and just slide it out, just like that.

All right, I want to loosen up this bracket. I'm going to loosen up this side first, this nut. I'm going to use a 10 millimeter socket and a ratchet, electric ratchet. You can use a regular ratchet if you don't have an electric one. You don't have to take this off completely. I'm just going to loosen it up. There's a little hook on the end of it, so I'm just loosen it up enough for that hook, and then we're going to take this bolt out right here. Same 10 millimeter socket, and take this bracket off.

Now there's these two ties that tie this wiring harness right here. These are already broken. Otherwise you can use a trim tool and just pop these off, or even some pliers, get underneath there and squeeze those. Pop those out.

I've got a 10 millimeter wrench. I'm going to loosen up this nut right here on the negative post. When you're disconnecting a battery, you always want to disconnect the negative first when you're taking it off. Disconnect that, slide that connector off. Now we can take the positive sign off. Pop this cover off, and then loosen this up with the same 10 millimeter wrench. This way, since the negative's already disconnected, if you were to arc out on a piece of metal, then it's not going to spark on you, or if you were to touch a piece of metal, it's not going to spark. Now just loosen this up, slide this up like that. There's a little bit of corrosion on here, so it's a good idea for us to take this out and clean it.

There's a cover on the battery. I'll just slide the cover off just so I don't lose my grip on the battery. Grab the battery, pull it up, and you can pull it out.

All right, before we put this battery back in, if you have any corrosion like this, you want to clean it. They make these batteries cleaning tools. You can use this on the terminal side on the car, the connector side, and then this is going to go on the battery itself. You just slide this over the battery, go in both directions, just like that. Do the positive side, and then also on the negative side, do the same. If you have to, you can just take the wire brush side, just clean any of the corrosion you see.

All right. Take the battery, slide it back in position. All right, before we install these terminals, we want to put the cover back on if you have one. Just line that up. Take the wire brush and just clean this end out. Make sure it's nice and clean, you don't get any of that corrosion in there. That looks good. We're going to install the positive side first. I'm going to take the 10 millimeter wrench and I'll tighten this nut down snug, not too tight, and then give it a wiggle. Just make sure it's nice and tight there.

We'll do the same with this, the negative side. Take the brush, clean that, and then double check the negative side if you want, and then install that. We'll tighten this down. Use the 10 millimeter wrench, tighten the nut down. That's good. Give it a wiggle. It looks good.

Now we'll take this bracket. Just line this little hookup down below. All right, that's lined up. Just hold the bracket there. You might have to wiggle the battery a little bit. Get that lined up over here. Put this bolt in first. Take a 10 millimeter socket and a ratchet, tighten this down. Make sure that cable doesn't get pinched. Then I'm just going to hold this bracket up, hold that rod up, and snug this up. Not too tight. You don't want to pinch the battery or anything. Just make sure it doesn't move.

We can take this cover, slide this cover back on. Then if you had these, if these wires were connected, you can reconnect those. Take this cover, line this cover up down below here, and just slide that in position. Make sure the holes are all lined up.

We want to reset these pushpins before we slide them back in. This needs to be spread like that, and then you have that little button on top. Then it's ready to reinstall. Slide it back into position like that, and then you can push down on the button, and we'll do the same with the other ones.

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