When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I have these on every car, (4) in our family. They do need to be cars in use if you use this particular model. I also have a 12 volt maint.charger too. ($68) onnline
Here is my attempt at squeezing in a Kirkland / Costco 51r battery in my 2009 Fit. It's very tight but it fits. All I had to do is discard the battery box and place a spacer under the battery. I used pieces of rubber under the spacer, and between the battery and the spacer, to prevent the battery from slipping. Battery seems secure. Fingers crossed. FWIW, I replaced the original Yuasa battery which lasted 9 years. It had not died yet, but I did not want to take a chance before another Canadian winter.
I managed to install a Costco/Kirkland 51r battery in my GE 2009 Fit. All I had to do is place a spacer under the battery. It's a very tight fit though. FWIW, I was replacing the original Yuasa battery, which lasted 9 years. It had not died yet, but I did not want to take the chance of another Canadian winter.
first you claim batteries only last 1.5 years, then 2 years. ridiculous.
then you claim just go buy a honda battery? honda does not make auto batteries for one.
two, buying a battery at the honda dealership will be more expensive than buying a battery elsewhere. three, honda dealerships will not give you a free battery if said battery checks out good when load tested.
Mine lasted 4 years, but I was driving a consistent 45 minute commute each way. Batteries sulfate rapidly when not at full charge. 1.5 to 2 years is typical for short trips.
I replaced mine at NAPA for about $97, for the correctly sized battery. This lasted 5 years with another NAPA replacement, only $72 as the previous still had some warranty left on it.
If the car is under warranty, Honda will replace the battery if it's shot. It's not prorated. Yes it's made by another company. Honda doesn't make starters, alternators, radios, radiators, A/C compressors etc. But they do warrant these. Tires are the only thing they will send you to the manufacturer for warranty replacements.
Hey, Squirrel, thanks for posting this. I can't tell you how happy I am to have found your post--and that it was from within the past year, not from 10 years ago.
I have been reading the threads for the past few years debating whether to try this and replace the 151R in my 2009 non-Sport Fit (Suzuka) with either a 51R or a 121R. But I've been hesitant out of fear of buying the battery and then finding out that it won't fit. I know several posters here have had success, but I can't tell from their descriptions whether the dimensions inside their Fits (many of them Sport models and most of them from different years than mine) would match mine close enough to avoid a huge headache. It looks like you've got the exact same model as me, so if you were able to do it, I should be able to as well.
A few questions though:
- What did you use for the spacer you sat the battery on?
- Did you need to cut off the fins or other parts of the airbox to make enough room on the battery's left side?
- Did you need to do anything else that required cutting with a Dremel/rotary tool?
- Did you have any trouble getting the red battery terminal connected into the circuit? Some other posters got into all sorts of details about needing extensions and whatnot because the cable wouldn't reach; and some have said they needed a battery terminal shim
- Since you decided to go without the battery box, aren't you worried about battery acid spills? (Well, obviously you're not that worried or you wouldn't have done this--what I'm getting at is did you give that possibility any thought?)
One other question: Someone mentioned in one of the threads that s/he had read or heard something about if the battery is removed from certain Hondas, it messes up the ignition electronics, which forces you to have to take the car to the shop to get the ignition reprogrammed or reset. Did you experience this? (Or does anyone else reading this post know something about this?)
I just copied my old reply from another post. This is what I did a couple years ago. Note only had to dremel the fins off. Easy to do.
.
Pics of my install. I was able to get the positive to connect though I am missing part of red cap I broke off long ago. By moving the strap I was able to fasten the positive wire to the the original connector to keep it away from engine block. A tight squeeze though between air box and battery. I hope we do not rub through for a short. I just cut the one end off the original tray.
2010 Fit here. 51R battery slid right in after taking the battery tray out.
Thanks for the reply (if you were replying to me--not sure), but it looks like your interior is different than mine. You don't have an airbox directly to the left of the battery space, which is the main problem. Also, I'm worried about what might happen if I went without any box or tray should there be a little leak (as in the post below), although I realize that that's probably very unlikely to occur. I'd rather keep some sort of tray if possible.
Originally Posted by dman
Anyone have issues with the 51R battery leaking? I made the switch to the 51R battery 3 years ago. Recently my '09 was having trouble starting and when I pulled the battery I noticed some corrosion inside the engine. It looks like the airbox has been rubbing the the side of the battery, causing a hole and some battery acid leaked out. Anyone else have this problem?
I just copied my old reply from another post. This is what I did a couple years ago. Note only had to dremel the fins off. Easy to do.
.
Pics of my install. I was able to get the positive to connect though I am missing part of red cap I broke off long ago. By moving the strap I was able to fasten the positive wire to the the original connector to keep it away from engine block. A tight squeeze though between air box and battery. I hope we do not rub through for a short. I just cut the one end off the original tray.
__________________
Yeah, I am probably going to end up doing this. But I have to get a Dremel first.
So you've been driving with it like this for a couple of years now eh? Sounds like your worry about 'rubbing through for a short' hasn't proved to have been a problem.
I'm also intrigued by the idea of using a 121R because it seems that there'd be an inch more wiggle room lengthwise, but there'd be a loss of a couple of inches of breathing space in width, which would mean the battery box would have to go and I'd have to come up with some other plan for tying the battery down than using the default setting plate & J-bolts or whatever those things are called because they wouldn't quite fit anymore. (I think the 121R battery also might cost more, although not sure about this.)
A couple of posters in another thread had positive experiences, but their Fits are from different years than mine and the interior dimensions aren't necessarily the same. Both of them decided to go without any tray or box:
Originally Posted by NotyourDadsOldsmobile2
Kudos on the 121R battery. I to have spent a lot of time searching for a bigger battery to fit into my 2008 Fit Sport. I did replace the 151R battery back some years ago with a 51R and I wound up removing the battery plastic tray thingy and bolted things into place. It is a tight fit but after many years of driving nothing was damaged. Now it is time to install a 121R. The biggest issue I see is that is wider by almost two inches but I have a plan to get it installed in a proper fashion. Length is not a problem as it could have been with the old 151R.
I bought a Deka Battery Tray and a Deka Battery Hold-Down they are made by the East Penn Company that also happens to be one the oldest battery companies around and they were the ones that built my new 121R Battery 72 month warranty and 24 month free replacement.
The battery tray is polypropylene and will require some cutting down to enable it to fit where the original one was. I'll try to post some pics when I get done.
Okay, I found that the rear (close to the firewall) "J" bolt is longer than the Front one. When using the aftermarket hold down I found that if I swapped the J-bolts from front to back, they would be long enough.
Now there is plenty of room around the battery.
Make sure on the firewall side that the J-bolt faces away from the battery.
On the front side I placed the hook on the outside of the battery tray. Worked out very well... snow not withstanding.
So I just replaced my 2013 Honda Fit stock battery with a 121R, based on the encouraging posts here. I tried to get Walmart and several other shops to do this for me, but all said it was against company policy to make modifications, even at the owner's request. So I bought a battery wrench and proceeded to do this myself. However, halfway through the conversion, I discovered that the stock, L-shaped positive clamp assembly would not reach far enough over the edge of the new battery to clamp around the terminal. No one mentioned this in earlier posts, so I assume there are differences based on which year of Honda Fit. The only thing I could think to do was buy some kind of clamp extension or wire. The store only had a marine battery clamp extension, which had a flat connector with a bolt, washer and wingnut on the other end, yielding about 2" or so extension. Now, I just had to figure out how to connect to the stock battery clamp. I ended up removing the original clamp bolt so I could spread the clamp halves apart. Then I twisted on the half clamp, rotating it 90 degrees, then widened its hole to fit my new bolt-on extension clamp. It worked! I previously completely removed the plastic battery container and placed two hard sponge abrasive pads between the battery bottom and stock frame. This allowed the battery to not hit the metal frame edges. I also had to bend the diagonal metal brace away that held the battery cable bracket so that it, too, would not prevent the battery from fitting. Pretty proud of myself, but I only did it myself because no one else would!
Decided to go with the 51R. $76 plus core at Costco.
It was very, very difficult to get the battery in. I tried it both with the original box (after cutting off the right side) and without. Either way, it is an extremely tight squeeze. On the left side, the battery abuts the electrical cable that exits off the positive terminal assembly. That cable is squished between the air box and the battery. On the right side, the battery itself directly abuts the wall of the headlight.
Trying to put the battery in so that it would line up parallel with the air box in the same way that the original 151R sits was not an option, even if I put the battery in by itself without the battery box; it was just too tight. So I had to put it in at a slight angle. The battery box sits on top of the arms of the metal tray that is supposed to hold the battery box. The pegs in the bottom of the battery box that are supposed to fit into holes in the metal tray just float above the metal tray bottom.
I was able to get the positive terminal to connect to the assembly by raising up the battery about a half inch. If I hadn't done that, only half of the terminal would fit into the assembly because the cables that come off the back of the assembly are very stiff and force the assembly up to that particular height.
So I am left wondering whether it will be safer to leave the set up like this or use a cable extender for the connection at the positive terminal, which might allow me adjust the battery angle and height a bit more. (I'll go back and add anticorrosion stuff and put in a taller and broader hold-down later.)
It's in so tight that the issue isn't going to be friction from rubbing so much as constant direct pressure. I'm more worried about the pressure on the right side than on the left with this setup.
Another poster in one of these threads showed how he just sawed off part of the arms of the metal tray, which allowed him to put the battery in at an even greater angle. That could work, but I don't really want to make that big of a structural change to the car. (Note: I uploaded one image here directly just in case something happens to the website where my images are hosted.)
I'm amazed that someone that's not in Canada / Vermont / Maine / North Dakota / etc would do this. Although marginal, the small 151 seems to get-r-done well enough for many years.
Went back and trimmed the fins off the right side of the upper half of the air box and the cable hook off the left side of the battery box. Trimmed the pegs off the bottom of the battery box. Put rubber-ish pads beneath the battery and between the right side of the battery and the wall to the headlight. Everything seems ok now.
Anybody who claimed that it's possible to fit a 51R into 2nd generation fit (at least the 2009, non-sport model) without any modifications was lying or delusional.
If I hadn't needed to renew my Costco membership and buy a Dremel, neither of which I had been planning to do, would have saved over $50 with this battery from Costco vs getting the 151R OEM from the dealer, and that's not counting the service charge.
I tried the same thing last month with the Costco 51R for my 2010 Honda Fit Sport. I shoehorned it in there,but after looking at the cables and just how tight it was, I decided not to do it. I'm sure you will be keeping an eye on yours for rubbing, pressure, etc. Hope it works OK.
Seems like the 51R is approx $30 more expensive than the 151R. Although a bit weak on a winter's morning in Pennsylvania, the 151R is good enough for me. I use DEKA batteries in all of my motorcycles / changed the '11 FIT and get years (5-8 yrs) of reliable service. So, no cut / paste for me especially as our winters have gotten milder (based on 40 yrs of ice-fishing same lakes and seen less ice thickness / less coverage / shorter seasons).
03-05-2017, 10:13 AM
