453 Battery Removal

Petrol 453 Fortwo & Forfour

On the 453, the battery is under the bonnet (hood), unlike the previous fortwo models. I have attached a Ctek trickle charger lead to my battery. You won’t have these cables.

On the negative side, you can either remove the 10mm nut and remove the earth cable and then unclip the voltage sensor.

Or you can loosen the 10mm nut on the side of the battery terminal clamp, then it can be lifted off as 1 piece.

On the positive side, you have a plastic cover. Lift this upwards to unclip it.

As with the other connector, you have 2 disconnection options for removing the positive connections. You can remove the 2x 10mm nuts…

…and lift the connection free.

Or, you can disconnect the blue connector, green connector and remove the 10mm nut and disconnect the thick cable.

The only thing remaining that is holding the battery in place is a bolt (arrowed below).

It’s a multi-head bolt so you can use either a 13mm socket on the outside of the bolt or a Torx40 on the inside of the bolt. With the bolt loosened, you can remove the battery clamp and bolt. A magnet on a stick can help get it out.

The battery can now be pulled from the front of the car.

It’s an EFB style battery.

Here is the battery tray after the battery was removed. If you have any water in it, dry it up.

With the battery out, you can swap the battery negative earth lead if you want to.

Electric Drive 453 Fortwo & Forfour EQ

Use a 10mm socket to loosen the earth clamp.

Now over to the other side.

Use the same 10mm socket to remove both nuts on the positive terminal.

Lift the bracket up out of the way.

With the 10mm socket again, loosen the nut and remove the terminal clamp.

Clean the clamp as it will have corroded.

On the electric drive 453, the battery has a clamp across the top of the battery. Use the 10mm socket to remove the nut shown below.

Lift that side of the clamp off of the stud…

…and then remove the 10mm nut off the other end of the clamp.

Lift the clamp and the hook out of the way.

Look down the front of the battery and you’ll see the B13 base clamp. Use a 13mm socket and a few extension bars to remove this bolt.

Grab the battery by the handle…

…and lift it out.

Thankfully, the battery tray is plastic. However, give it a clean anyway.

The battery has a breather hose plugged into the side. Disconnect it…

…and clip the lower end into the battery tray. When you refit the battery, it’s easy to reconnect the breather into the side of the battery.

Clamp everything back down and consider applying a bit of grease to both terminals before refitting and retightening the clamps. This will stop further corrosion.

Fitting A New Battery – Coding

There is a myth going around that a new battery has to be coded so the car knows it has more available power. This is not true. The battery monitor clipped to the negative terminal will very quickly work out there is more power.

Recommended Battery

Do yourself a favour and buy an AGM 027 battery.

In 2021, 2022 and 2023 I bought 3 separate 027 AGM batteries from Halfords. They have a 5 year warranty but the price went up every time. They started at about £120 but now increases in 2023 to about £150.

That’s when I went over to buying the Duracell 027 AGM with a 3 year warranty – click here.

I was in no way swayed by the free Duracell bunny.

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