318ti.org forum - View Single Post - Euro/Non-US members with factory rear battery?

sprnova · 12-27-2005, 05:01 AM

Yes I plan to try and get as much info out of him as I can. So far he seems like a nice guy. He was happy to hear from a US compact owner.

He told me that his car does have the spare hanging underneath the car just as ours does. I just went out to my car and removed the spare and took out the plastic "suport for car tools" insert that sits in the floor of the trunk. I really dont see how you could get a battery in there, even if you were using the 323ti equivalent of the USA plastic insert. There is just not enough depth. Based on that I looked in the ETK and compared part #'s for the trunk floor. The 323ti trunk floor has a different part #. That does not necessarily mean the part is different, but my guess would be that it is. I think it would have to be deeper so the battery would not stick up too high. Or I could be completely wrong and the 323ti may just use a half-height battery. But I cannot say I have seen BMW use one of those.

I also took a quick look in the ETK at the part #'s that makeup the spare wheel housing, etc. They all looked the same for both the 323ti and 318ti.

So I dont know. I thought there might be some factory holes in the trunk where you could just screw the 323ti battery hold-down brackets into but I do not see any in my car. But then again, maybe the plastic storage unit that sits in the trunk floor has the proper areas to screw the battery hold-down brackets into.

Update: While I was typing this I decided to go out to my car and measure the distance from the bare trunk bottom the to top of the trunk floor. It is approx. 6". I then measured the height of my factory BMW battery. It is 6 3/4". So maybe a battery could fit in there as things are. But you would also have to take into account how much height the plastic insert that the battery sits in would add.

12-27-2005, 05:01 AM	#30
sprnova Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Nebraska Posts: 136 iTrader: (0) Photo Gallery	Yes I plan to try and get as much info out of him as I can. So far he seems like a nice guy. He was happy to hear from a US compact owner. He told me that his car does have the spare hanging underneath the car just as ours does. I just went out to my car and removed the spare and took out the plastic "suport for car tools" insert that sits in the floor of the trunk. I really dont see how you could get a battery in there, even if you were using the 323ti equivalent of the USA plastic insert. There is just not enough depth. Based on that I looked in the ETK and compared part #'s for the trunk floor. The 323ti trunk floor has a different part #. That does not necessarily mean the part is different, but my guess would be that it is. I think it would have to be deeper so the battery would not stick up too high. Or I could be completely wrong and the 323ti may just use a half-height battery. But I cannot say I have seen BMW use one of those. I also took a quick look in the ETK at the part #'s that makeup the spare wheel housing, etc. They all looked the same for both the 323ti and 318ti. So I dont know. I thought there might be some factory holes in the trunk where you could just screw the 323ti battery hold-down brackets into but I do not see any in my car. But then again, maybe the plastic storage unit that sits in the trunk floor has the proper areas to screw the battery hold-down brackets into. Update: While I was typing this I decided to go out to my car and measure the distance from the bare trunk bottom the to top of the trunk floor. It is approx. 6". I then measured the height of my factory BMW battery. It is 6 3/4". So maybe a battery could fit in there as things are. But you would also have to take into account how much height the plastic insert that the battery sits in would add.