Swapped out the battery when my AutoStart/Stop wouldn't work and I started to get messages about running the engine. I can park for a week at a time if I'm traveling on business so I need a strong battery. Autozone replacement with Core and tax was a little over $220.

Anyway, thought I would post some info on it in case it could be helpful to others. I'll take some photos if anyone needs. There's good posts about the steps involved I wanted to flush out a bit more detail. I'm NOT a mechanic. You MAY be voiding your warranty. You MIGHT blow up your electronics. I simply don't know the risks so this is not advice as I'm not qualified to provide any.

First thing I did was unlock the car to ensure the alarm wasn't set.
As others have posted I needed a 10 mm and 13 mm wrench as well as a 13 mm socket. I took out the battery cover AND the plastic trunk insert which exposed the two bolts on the passenger side of the tie down. Removing those two bolts and one bolt on the driver side removed the tie down. I used the 10mm to loosen the negative, removed it and immediately wrapped it so it would touch again. A better idea, in hindsight, would have been to use the plastic cover off the new core to immediately cover the old one. I used the 13 mm to loosen the positive, pushed it out of the way and wrapped it. Again the cover from the new could be used temporarily here. With the trunk piece out I could shift the battery to the right, twist and lift it out very easily. I verified the new battery was exactly the same size and had the same flanges on the bottom. Note the driver side of the mount is fixed so I can NOT lift the battery straight up, it has to slide right after removing the tie down bar because the bottom right of the bar has the flange that grabs the battery.

Once I confirmed the batteries were exactly the same size I dropped in the new one. I chose to bolt it down before hooking up the terminals. I replaced the three bolts to lock in the battery, ensure it fit, ensure the hold down wasn't going to rub or that I generally missed anything. The bar goes across the battery in the middle - nowhere near the terms. I replaced the negative and tightened the 10mm screw and tested connection for fit. Upon replacing the positive I ran into a problem where it wouldn't synch up so I loosened and pushed it down 100%. It was 95%. Upon the top of the terminal being a millimeter below the top of battery stem, I was able to get grip by tightening the 13mm screw. I made a note that things were not very tight from the factor, my guess is 20lbs so I matched that. I'll check it in a week just to make sure.

The plastic goes right back in and becomes a trunk and the cover drops on. Very quick job and I started it up and tested everything and aside from redoing the clock and date everything was just fine. Suddenly the car is now doing the AutoStart/AutoStop indicating the voltage monitoring now sees enough current to facilitate the restarts. There's also a piece of velcro'd Styrofoam in front of the battery that hold the liquid canister on convertibles (that don't have a spare) which I removed because I would rather get towed then ruin a $480 tire putting a can of fix'a'flat into it. But that's my personal preference as I have AAA.

If this helps anyone I can snap some photos. Where I got stuck was trying to get access to the passenger side bolts with the trunk still in. The battery cover, by itself, doesn't do much, there's a small flap to the left and the trunk to the right that have to be lifted / removed respectively.

 

Did you think of charging your old battery before replacing, to see if it just needed a boost?

 

Good price on the autozone battery. With the lead acid batteries in the trunk, don't they need a vent line to ensure explosive gases vent to the outside of the car? Did the autozone battery have that? Or am I confusing this requirement with one of my other cars?

 

Pretty sure the AGM batteries used in the F-Type don't need or have vent tubes, I can't remember seeing one on the battery in my car.

 

 

Thanks Oh Unhingd one, I stand corrected!
I haven't seen the vent line coz I haven't needed to change the OEM battery yet, unlike both my XFS and XFR where I stuck a new battery in not long after I bought them.
Yep, I should have RTFM first!
On page 16385 of the Workshop Manual:
PRIMARY BATTERY - ALL VEHICLES
The primary battery is located in a tray on the luggage compartment
floor. A clamp secures the primary battery in position. The battery is
vented via a tube which is connected with a T piece to the vent from
the secondary battery (if fitted) and passes through a grommet in the
floorpan.

 

In a way, yes. I took it for a very, very long drive which charged it up good but only for a day before I started getting the messages again. I live in AZ and if you battery is weak it won't survive the 114 degree heat. And that's in the shade. I literally change all my car batteries after 3 years because I feel it's cheap insurance. Plus I don't have a charging system which would have cost more than the battery. The wife and I are also trying to get out of the business of buying things we use for a day and then have to store for 3 years - she calls it decluttering. So for me a swap was the simple answer.

 

There is a small vent hose I completely forgot to mention and the replacement battery did have the exact same vent hold so I was able to move the vent hose with extreme ease. When I think about the offgasing from hybrid cars where batteries are under the rear seats and not the trunk, like say a Prius or Fusion Energi, I think that is way more toxic than a battery in the trunk of the F. When I took my Prius apart and saw the battery shroud was not even remotely sealed in any way, just plastic pieces sitting on top of other plastic pieces it all made sense to me why those cars stink so badly. The tiny little fan they put on the passenger side rear fender to try to vent the offgasing doesn't stand a chance with the 6 or 7 plastic joints that aren't even sealed with a piece of rubber or foam.

Thanks for reminding me to mention there is a vent tube hole and it is the same size as the factory battery.

 

Wow I wish i had this diagram before I started but this is a bit deceiving because it's not showing the other side of the #2 bar which is where I struggled because I wasn't expected two bolts on that side.

 

Battery that worked for me.

Seems to fit a ton of cars as well as plenty of jags.

 

Previous threads seem to verify your comment that AGM is only an excessive pressure relief not an offgas vent.

 

I did a bit of research a couple of years ago, and as best as I can tell, this is the OEM battery, should anyone care...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5tvrtsxpyl...5D852.pdf?dl=0