How to change the batteries of the Paris Hilton's SLR yourself

The title is correct. That SLR, the same one. The SLR. If you follow VINwiki, you know the one.

I was hoping to offer a better introduction, but here we are - straight to changing the batteries. A proper photoshoot and videos have been planned, lots of videos actually, so stay tuned.

The online presence of the SLR is somewhat obscure. It’s either POV videos on German highways, Manny Khoshbin buying his 9th SLR, Jeremy Clarkson crossing channels with it, paparazzi stories and recently - Ed Bolian explaining how expensive it is to maintain an SLR. All of these representations of it are correct, don’t get me wrong. They all see the SLR however they want or wanted to. It serves or served a specific purpose for all of them. The same way it does to me. Since Ed Bolian was the last owner of this SLR, I would like to comment a bit on the SLR maintenance bill video called "Here is why you should NEVER EVER buy a Mercedes SLR McLaren Especially Paris Hilton's" (It's worth mentioning that the video was posted by Hoovies Garage. I hope you enjoyed sitting there, Tyler.). I don't understand what the purpose of this video was, but overall generalising costs while being famous YouTubers with huge audiences is an equivalent of a disengagement from reality. At the same time I understand them. Because of the obscurity of the SLR, we all can say whatever we want and people will believe us, because they don’t have the SLR in front of them - we do. Using the power of it being rare. To me, that maintenance bill video was a bit miscalculated and ignorant. There’s a whole SLR community called “The SLR Club”. It would have been great if Ed or Tyler had given some of the long-time owners of an SLR the opportunity to comment how much it costs to maintain one in Europe for a change and comparison. Because what it might cost in the US is far from what it costs here, especially in Eastern Europe.

Back to the purpose of this post. The batteries were dead, they needed to be replaced. Quite normal for a gracefully ageing car. The batteries costed around 350 EUR. That’s great. I decided to change them myself. While I was fully unaware of what I was getting myself into, I started searching videos and any sources of information on how exactly this procedure should be done. Unsurprisingly, there was almost nonexistent content on how to change the batteries of an SLR by yourself. Here’s the moment to mention the video of Kris Hadlock - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rAaG4TSsDwI . And the amazing SLR Club - https://www.slr-club.com/en/service/technical-information/interior/ I decided to do a step-by-step instruction post on how to do it in case you have an SLR and you want to do it yourself. It happens apparently. The only part where I needed help was when taking out the old batteries and replacing them with the new ones, because they're heavy (I'm sure most people will be able to do this by themselves as well.). Anything else can be done at home with tools you probably already own.

Step 1: Locate the batteries and remove the boot mat

The batteries are in the trunk, there's even a sign in the front stating that you should be looking for them in the trunk. This is what it should look like after you remove the boot mat. No tools needed at this step, you just pull the mat out.

Step 2: Remove the trunk lining on both sides

This step is pretty clear and you'll need tools from this step onwards.

Step 3: Remove the plastic cover from the carbon fiber panel on the left

You should be left with something that looks like this. It's important to follow some basic rules where and how you want to store all the parts you're removing, so that the whole process can run smoothly.

Another viewpoint on how it looks with the left panel removed. You can see the batteries entirely and you think you're almost done - you're not!

Close-up of the batteries.

Step 4: Remove the batteries

As you can see from this photo, I also removed the plastic panel just under the batteries (you can compare with the previous step), because the only way to remove them is to unscrew them and the way to do that is to remove that panel and reach them from there.

After removing both batteries you should be left with something that looks like this.

Step 5: Place the new batteries

And you're done. Now time to put everything back together, but before that - test if everything runs smoothly by turning the engine on.

And it's ON! All for 350 EUR.