two days ago i was forced to replace my 2000 Honda Civic EX’s battery for the first time. i had previously driven a 1985 Buick Skylark and a 1991 Chevy Lumina. their batteries were not the easiest to reach, but as you can see from the photo here, this battery is easily removed and replaced.

well, it should be, at least…

first of all, i removed the old battery and placed it in Britta’s car to take it to Sears. i was able to buy the battery without incident and then take it back to our place to install it in the car.

i noticed when i purchased the battery that the posts were on the “back” of the battery rather than the “front” (closer to the front of the car), but didn’t think much about it. when i got home, i realized that the difference in this placement meant that the negative lead (connected to the chassis) was too short to reach the new location of the post. so, i had to head to another auto parts store to get a new cable.

when i removed the battery, i thought that i had lost one nut that helped hold the battery in place so i bought a set of those as well.

i got back home, successfully removed the old battery cable, and began attaching the new battery cable. as i screwed in the bolt, it fell through the car (somewhere) and was lost forever to either the car’s innards or the gravel driveway. clearly, it’s not good form to just have the battery connected to the positive lead, so i went back to the auto parts store (after calling the local Honda dealership to find out that i needed a 6mm x 12mm threaded bolt to connect the battery cable to the chassis).

luckily, i had found the nut i had previously thought lost and hadn’t opened the package yet. the cost of this package was the same as the cost of the replacement bolt, so all was good. the only hassle here was that the store only had 6mm x 10mm and 6mm x 16mm bolts. i got the longer bolts and hoped for the best. finally, i got back to the car and was able to attach the new battery cable and successfully finish the job.

or so i thought.

as i tested the battery by turning on the ignition, i noticed something strange. the CD that had previously been in my CD player was sticking out of my dashboard. i didn’t think much of it until i tried to turn on my radio. i received the message “CODE” when i pressed the on button. crap! i don’t know what this radio code is!

i searched throughout all the materials and still couldn’t find it. after 30 minutes of searching and calling the Honda dealer, i finally found the 5 digit code on a checklist that was completed by some technician after the car was delivered to the dealer in 2000. whew! entering the code gained me access to my tunes again and life was good.

was should’ve been a 10-15 minute installation became a nearly 3 hour ordeal. maybe this is just confirmation of the fact that i shouldn’t have been an engineer…