On Thursday, my mentor Jake, a 23-year-old KIA master technician, and I were replacing a battery in a PHEV vehicle. At first, I thought this was going to be a very complicated and intimidating job, but it actually turned out to be quite straightforward and manageable.
At the start of the day, I performed a service on a car, and immediately afterward I went to help Jake. First, we had to remove several safety metal covers that were protecting the connectors and other components around the battery. Then we weren’t completely sure whether the high-voltage battery was fully discharged and disconnected, so Jake brought out a high-voltage safety kit and put on his insulated gloves and used specialized tools.
Keep in mind that the battery can deliver upwards of 500 volts, and even around 100 volts can be fatal to a person. Once he safely disconnected the battery, all that was left was to remove the charging cable and the eight screws holding the battery in place. After that, the process was simple: we brought in the new battery, unboxed it, installed it, and placed the old one back into the box, since it was a warranty replacement.
After reconnecting everything, the car was moved to another workshop, where new software was installed and the system updated over the course of six hours. This was truly a great experience, and I learned a lot from it.
