If I am not mistaken, you should be able to change it with the car running. Loosen the terminals, start the car, and pull the battery. The car will still run and (in theory) the radio and presets and all should remain. I have seen a battery change with the car running before but I don't know about the radio stuff

 

I would not recommend this.

On the topic of batteries, I just had to change the battery in my wife's G sedan and got an Exide Global Extreme battery in size 24FX. It is slightly larger than our stock application but still fits the compartment and the tray. However it is a 800 CCA battery vs our stock application which is 585 CCA. It has an 7 year prorated warranty, with 40 months free replacement/jump starts which is the longest I have found. $120. $10 rebate if purchased after 1/1/15. Tractor Supply Company carries them.

 

NO NO NO !!! You are mistaken

DO NOT EVER DO THIS

It's not like the old days. On these, and a lot of other modern cars, pulling the battery while the car is running can have catastrophic effects on the car's electrical system. The battery needs to be in place for proper voltage regulation. Removing it can cause a significant voltage spike which could damage any number of sensitive components, like the whole ECU!

 

took me far longer than a couple of minutes to switch my battery, and i still didnt lose my presets

 

Well like I said it had been a while. When I think about it it was an older car, it was a last resort to get a dead car started without jumper cables. I wasn't by any means saying it was set in stone! I just knew I had seen it done LoL

 

I can't say exactly how long it takes for the radio and seats to lose their presets, but I know you have at least about 5 or 6 minutes. And if you are properly prepared for the switch, that's plenty of time. How long was yours disconnected without losing presets?

 

Do these things work? At 9V, is that enough to preserve the ECU, windows, and Radio presets?

 

Veils1de, how long was your battery disconnected for?

I would think the terminals should be the last things to get removed. Shouldn't take more than a min or two to swap the batteries out then reconnect. Doing so one does have to be careful not to short out the positive terminal with any tools.

 

My battery completely died on me for a couple of days, the time on my clock was off but i still had all my presets

 

^^ Ditto

I never worry about my presets whenever I've changed a battery. It's just the clock and maybe the window auto-up/down resets that need to be performed, and that's even after it's been a few days.