My 850i is due for registration renewal. That's not too bad of a problem except that it's been sitting on a parking lot for the last six months, which means that the batteries (yes, plural) are completely discharged. So I spent some time this weekend getting to the batteries.
The batteries are accessed through the trunk and located above the driver and passenger side rear wheel wells. In most cars, swapping out the car battery is a simple procedure -- pop the hood, unhook the connectors and pull the battery out, put in the new battery, hook up the connectors and away you go.
My car, the 850, not so convenient.
As I mentioned before, the battery is accessed through the trunk. An interesting feature of this car is that almost everything is powered. Trunk included. So before I can even open the trunk, first I must power the vehicle, which means hooking up a pair of jumper cables from the Celica to the 850. When I do this and power up the BMW, I discover a feature not mentioned to me by the previous owner -- a car alarm.
Yes, the 850 was honking its horn and flashing its lights after having power. After disabling the alarm, I opened the trunk and started disassembling the interior to get to the battery -- trunk mat, driver side interior panel, passenger side interior panel, portable jack, cd changer all have to be removed before I can even access the batteries. Since I've done this before, the procedure is fairly quick, and the batteries are removed. The batteries are still under warranty, so I will get them replaced.
I notice that some of the paint on the car is starting to crack and chip (It's an 14 year old car with the original paint -- I suppose it is time)
Wow, sounds like quite a pain.
If you're going to leave your car for such lengths of time, perhaps you might want to get one of those solar trickle-chargers that car dealers tend to have in cars in the deeper lots. I don't know how much those cost, but they shouldn't be too bad. Basically, it's a solar cell that plugs into the lighter socket, and you leave it on the dash. Doesn't take much sun to keep the battery topped off...