Learned something new, today.....

[Big Muddy]

My m-i-l owes a 2005 Cadillac, and she couldn't get the engine to turn over, this afternoon...I made the hour drive to her house to check it out, but could not locate the day'um battery....I don't know jack sheeit about a Cadillac, so I got out the owner's manual, and finally located that big-azzed battery under the rear seat...the rear seat has to be literally removed from inside the vehicle.
I'm sure Thump, and anyone else who knows Cadillacs, already knows where the battery is located, but not me....and, I couldn't believe the size of that thing....it's nearly the size of a big-azzed tractor battery!!! ;)

[LJ3]

That's crazy. Must be a throwback to the days when they were the cars with all the fancy electronics gadgets. There's no reason I can think of for them to need more cranking amps these days.

You know, Thump used to work at a Caddy dealer and would help Elvis screw wimmin in the back seats of the cars after he washed the cars.... or something like that :)

[Captain]

About 4 or 5 years ago we were in my buddies new Cadillac Escalade headed to the Keys to Tarpon fish and got a flat tire on I-95. (Turned out to be a cracked rim) We could not find the spare tire/wheel. Got out the owners manual and discovered there is NO spare in these SUV's. We summoned Onstar, they called the dealer, they came got us and the vehicle and away to the dealership we go for a new wheel and tire. The whole deal added about 5 hours to our already long run. Wonder what would have happened if it had been 2 in the morning?

[Thumper]

Ha! They've been under the back seat for almost 20 years now Edward (well, since '98 I think). Just open the hood and you'll see why. There ain't room for a toothpick under that hood. Just try to change a set of frigging sparkplugs on those things! Cars are no fun anymore. I used to be able to take one apart down to the last nut and bolt, then put it all back together again. These days, if it stalls out, I don't even bother opening the hood ... just call a tow truck. Half the time, when I open the hood, I don't know what the "F" I'm looking for anyway ... OR what it even looks like ... much less where the "F" it might be located. BTW, there should be a lug under the hood to hook onto if you need to use jumper cables.

I remember on our Corvette (heck, can't remember if it was the '93 or the '98) Lynn called from the grocery store and said the car wouldn't start. I got her jumped and we got the car home. It needed a battery so I went down to pick one up and replace it in the garage. I could NOT get that battery out'ta there! I finally found out ya' haf'ta remove the fucking left front fender!! Chevy sells bazillions of replacement LF fenders because of people cracking the fiberglass while trying to replace a stupid battery. That's just ONE of the reasons I gave up on owning Corvettes. $2000 for a set of tires every 15,000 - 18,000 miles was one of them (and that's after BABYING the tires ... figure on under 15,000 if you like to get "aggressive" from time to time ... but who would ever do THAT in a 'Vette?). Oh, then it'd cost me $80 apiece just to have them mounted & balanced! (and that was 1990's dollars).

But I digress. I remember when my buddy had an old Volkswagen Beetle in the very early '70's (in the military). We were cruising around and picked up a couple of gals. I climbed in the backseat with my new friend and shortly after, we hit a bump. The seat spring hit the battery posts under the back seat and lit my ass up! I thought that car was gonna burn to the ground with us trapped in the backseat! Do you have any idea how hard it is for a 6'3" dude to get out of the backseat of a VW Beetle? I think I set the record at under 0.003 seconds! ('course it took FOREVER for my buddy to realize what was happening and get us stopped) I think there was supposed to be some sort of cover over the battery ... at least I would hope so ... but obviously this one did not have one! That's when we found out the floor was rotted out under the battery and sombody had laid a couple pieces of 2X4 with a plywood sheet nailed across them to keep the battery from falling out onto the road! It also raised the (most likely wrong sized battery) to within .0002 MM of the rear seat springs! :angry1

[Buckrub]

Not just Caddys.

My late mother in law's 2001 Buick was same way.

[Thumper]

Not just Caddys.

My late mother in law's 2001 Buick was same way.

Yep, should'a said GM ... they're all the same dang cars, just have different name-tags glued on 'em.

[Buckrub]

Speaking of which, maybe you can address this. My boat motor is a 115 hp Mercury. If you take the cowling cover off, it is as compact as anything every designed. You have to remove anything to get to anything else. It's a 4 stroke, so it is a bit bigger than a 2 stroke, but still it is WAY smaller than the engine under the hood of a car with that much hp.

So, why can't a car maker make a car engine with that much hp, that is that small????