Avg price for battery replacement and program?
Dean, we don’t know where you live (and don’t want to know…). Just pick up the phone and call around. You’ll get your best answer that way AND you can schedule an appointment for that battery replacement.
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Enter your vehicle information here, and you’ll get some idea about the price.
https://repairpal.com/estimator
Tester
According to my information, between $10 and $1000. Prices may be higher on weekends and holidays.
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A while back someone here talked about the long procedure to install a battery on a BMW. Might want to ask your dealer and have it done there if reprogramming is required.
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Why would a manufacturer build a car that needs re-programing to replace a battery except to fleece more money from their customer, and ,once word gets out, why would anyone buy them?
Is it like French waiters, the more they look down their noses at their customers, the higher the tip?
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It appears as long as you get the same CCA battery you don’t need to reprogram but if you go to a different capacity or a AGM battery you do. According to the bmw forum’s at least. Some have gone to their local parts store and bought a new battery without needing to do anything else.
You might want to as if whoever replaces the battery if they use a memory saver.
@oldtimer-11. Years ago, there was a procedure for reconnecting the battery in a 1954 Buick.
- Make certain everything is turned off and doors are closed
- Connect positive cable.
- Scratch negative cable against negative post,
but do not connect. - Repeat step 3. If there is no spark, connect cable. If there is a spark, the clock is not fully wound. Allow clock to run down and go back to step 3.
In those days, the clock was spring driven. Every two or three minutes, a solenoid would click on and rewind the spring. Many makes of cars had this type of clock. I just pulled the fuse for the clock as it never kept accurate time anyway.
Now we have to do even stranger things to keep computers from losing their memory when the battery is disconnected.
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Even an Oldtimer can learn new old time things.
I checked with the Costco site and a battery for that car costs;
New York City; $149
Miami FL; $149
Phoenix AZ $149
Expect to pay between .5 and 1.0 hours of labor to install and set the programming for a new battery.
That certainly didn’t work with me.
The first time that I was in Paris, I remembered that the French like you to try to communicate in their language, so I dredged-up my best attempt from my memories of high school French instruction.
The pompous fool who waited on us saw fit to correct my pronunciation of one of the entrees.
Since my friend and I both received exactly what I had ordered, clearly the waiter understood what I had said, even though he felt a compulsion to correct my pronunciation of one word. And, his tip consisted solely of the service charge that was automatically included on the bill. The guidebooks stated that one should leave a few coins to supplement the included service charge, but I did not do that–in this case.
I opted to not return to the restaurant that employed that pompous fool.
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You don’t tip in Europe. You leave extra change at most. The service you get reflects that custom as there is no incentive to be nice to customers. Or attentive to customers.
I haven’t gotten any rude waiters in France… indifferent maybe…but not specifically rude.
The flip side, though, is the wait staff does not try and run you off to turn the table for another customer. That is a good custom!
Many of the Europeans I’ve worked with that visited the US told me specifically; “Tipping works!”
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This discussion has cropped up here before. When you change the battery, you need an expensive tool to reset the state of charge so the electronics in the car properly maintains the battery. People, myself included, bemoaning the complication of a previously simple task, seen as a money grab to support their dealership network.
This is where the variation in cost is likely to come from versus the material. Labor costs can vary widely based on where you live. Costco doesn’t care where they ship the material to, similar cost regardless…
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Yes, it could be interpreted as a “money grab”, but I think it is just one more example of the chronic over-complication of German-designed electronic and mechanical devices.
Well, I can understand the need to align the on-board electronics control to the state of the new battery. Requiring a tool to do it is completely unnecessary unless you are trying to get people to pay for it. It could be set or reset through a number of existing methods without any additional cost to implement. Just like you can reset your oil change reminder on most cars now. Imagine if you had to visit a dealer to do that…
Some folks would still do that, even though resetting the OLM is easier that ever. The procedure on my naughties Accord was much less intuitive.
As the long-time owner of a 2004 330i and a 2004 325iT, I have replaced several batteries in these cars. These cars can use an array of different batteries, so long as the post configuration is correct and the height is short enough to fit below the battery cover. I always buy a battery with greater CCA than the specifications require. The only downside is it will be heavier. If the battery you buy is vented, you will need to open a hole and carefully route the vent hose out the bottom of the battery box or the fumes will rot out the car body back there.
It is generally a good idea to maintain a 12V supply to a car while replacing the battery, but on these cars, it is not required. A 2004 does not require reprogramming the charging logic to accommodate a new/different battery (as newer BMWs do). A 2004 3-series does not forget the stop points on windows/sunroof. The worst that might happen will be that you may loose radio presets and learned adaptations of engine and automatic transmission, but those will recover after a few drive cycles.
If you want to replace it yourself:
Make sure you can return your old battery to the place that sells you the new one.
Don’t buy a battery that has been sitting on the shelf for a year or more.
Do not lift the battery by its posts.
Do not let the battery case touch your good clothing because some batteries are filled by dunking them in acid. It won’t hurt your hands but it can do a number on a nice shirt.
Clean the posts and clamps before assembly. I use steel wool.
Don’t tweek the posts over-tightening the clamps.
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Yes, I am familiar with the service charge in France, U had no French in high school because i the freshman Introdduction to Languages course in high school, I could not distinguish between any of the sounds the teacher was making when she was trying to teach us French. Perhaps it is because I heard a lot of German when I was growing up.
We did have a few rude waiters in France. No rude ones in Switzerland or Ireland. Two countries we enjoyed much more than France.
Our trip to France started off badly, we flew directly to Paris and the shuttle bus from the airport pulled over and dumped us and our luggage off the bus miles from our hotel in the rain with the driver shoutibg Terminus, Terminus.
It was not until that we got to our hotel, drenched and exhausted that we found out the the president of France was being inaugrated that day and they had shut down all vehiculad traffic to the central part of the city. Not even cabs or buses were allowed through. If it was not for someone in a coffee shop where we were dumped off who provided directions, I don’t know how we would have found our hotel.
You started learning French too late. I took French in early elementary school in a class before the normal school day started. It was called French Language in Elementary School (FLES), if anyone is familiar with it. I still remember a lot of it sixty years later. Not so much the high school French, though.
We went to Cozumel for a family vacation. Half way through the week, the wait staff at the hotel started teaching us Spanish, and corrected our pronunciation. IMO, they were just tying to make our trip more enjoyable and encourage us to return and enjoy Mexican life more than we would if we just spoke American.