How-to: Battery replacement

[jac]

In nearly 6 years of owning the X5, I have found that this community is very good at creating how-to guides for various maintenance and repair procedures for this vehicle. However, I have not seen one made for the battery.

Yes, I know that replacing the battery is a cake walk compared to changing a CV boot, doing your brakes, replacing the final stage resistor, installing your own hitch, etc... However, I am not really looking for a step by step of how to find the battery, or how to disconnect it, how to unbolt it or how to drop in a new one.

I am however, looking for the things that WILL happen once you disconnect the battery from the + and - terminals, as well as for the things that one should do once the new battery is hooked up.

I have read through a few posts in this forum by various folks, and here is what I have gathered so far:

- When disconnecting the battery, the radio station settings are lost
- When disconnecting the battery, the trip computer settings are lost
- When connecting the new battery, you should first press the sunroof button upwards. This is supposedly the procedure followed by BMW service centers.
- When connecting the new battery, the second thing you should do is turn the steering wheel from left to right through its lock/unlock positions. This supposedly resets the control panel lights or something like that...

Are there any other things that one should do after connecting the new battery?

What other side effects will occur due to the vehicle having been without a battery? For example, will the seat memory be lost? Will the radio ask you to enter a code when you first try to use it?

Hopefully folks will reply to this thread with more info and we can gather it all in one place for the next person dealing with this issue.

Thanks,

JAC

[SuperGreg]

I replaced my battery myself, and don't remember having any of the issues you have listed. Ok maybe I lost the radio presets, I can't remember. It's really no biggie, no need to turn the wheel etc...