Power wheels battery dying or just not lasting long enough? Upgrading a power wheels battery is a great way for kids to get a lot more enjoyment out of their toy. While this guide will not make your child’s power wheels run any faster, it will make it run much longer, all while utilizing the same charger. The most awesome part of this deal, you can quadruple the capacity (and run time) of the battery for the same price as the power wheels battery.
Why would you want to upgrade your power wheels battery?
For quite some time, I just used a lawn and tractor battery and at $25 each lasting 6 months, the solution didn’t seem that bad, but these types of batteries are not designed for the full discharge type use that a power wheels battery is put through. After 3 years and a handful of Lawn and tractor batteries we got a bad battery that started spewing battery acid and overheating, EEEK!
The standard power wheels battery prevents this because it is a sealed lead acid deep cycle battery, just like a wheelchair batteries happen to be. Soon after discovering this fact, I found that wheelchair batteries came in many different capacities and at much lower prices than the standard power wheels batteries. Voila!
Safety issues when upgrading a power wheels battery to make it last longer!
You must be sure the following issues are address BEFORE a child drives the modified power wheels!
- The new battery must be secured in the battery compartment (My children have flipped the power wheels before and made the battery come flying out towards them). Do not skip this step!
- Loose wires should be covered with electrical tape and preferably inaccessible to children
How to Make your Power Wheels Battery Last Longer
Step 0: Purchase a new Sealed Lead Acid Battery. Here is a table of the ones I was looking at:
Power Wheels 12-Volt Rechargeable Battery |
9.5 Amp Hours capacity -$56 |
ExpertPower 12v 33ah Rechargeable Deep Cycle Battery [EXP12330] |
33 Amp Hours – The one I picked – Easily outlasts both children (lasts a few days between charges with a few hours of use daily) & fit under the hood without modification (had to remove factory battery restraint and make my own) $61 |
ExpertPower EXP12200 12 Volt 20 Ah Rechargeable Battery With Threaded Terminals |
20 Amp Hours – Twice the capacity for $20 less!, Not confirmed, but this should drop right into place with the factory battery restraint. $36 |
12V 100Ah SOLAR WIND AGM SLA DEEP CYCLE VRLA BATTERY 12V 24V 48V |
100 Amp Hours – Couldn’t help myself, this would last weeks without charging. This would also require heavily modifying the frame to accomodate such a large battery, Don’t forget about safety and check the measurements before you go for a beast like this! $160 |
Step 1: Harvest the female battery adapter from the old battery. Save as much of the wire as possible, do not open the sealed battery acid compartments. (This step is technically not mandatory, but makes the installation, easier, safer, and compatible with the old charger.)
Step 2: Wire the black wire of the female battery harness to the negative terminal of your new battery and wire the white wire to the positive battery terminal (Crimping ring connectors to the end of the wires would be preferred). Cover both terminals completely with electrical tape.
Step 3: Secure the battery into the truck so that it will not fall out if the truck falls over, or secure the hood so that only an adult can access the battery compartment.
Step 4: Plug the male and female connectors together and you are good to go! Unplug and plug in the charger just like before to charge the new battery.
Step 5 for the Obsessive Compulsive: Buy a voltage gauge and wire directly to the battery with a button. The kids push the button to read the battery voltage and you know when you need to charge or when to stop charging. Bonus, the kids learn to read numbers and relate them to real world functions!
Conclusion
I hope this was a helpful write-up, most of the links are affiliate links and I appreciate if you use them because I get a small percentage of your purchase that helps me run this website.
Please keep the safety of your little ones in mind at all times! We have had the battery above in our Power wheels for about 6 months and it is showing no signs of decline at all, it runs for several days before we charge it overnight once or twice a week. Brilliant!
If you are here, you would probably be interested in the DIY Ultimate Power Wheels Turbo Boost Button.
11 thoughts on “How to upgrade a Power Wheels Battery (longer lasting)”
Thanks for the article! Quick question – can I just leave the battery hooked to the motor and keep it secured in the car while it’s charging if I use the female battery adapter? The male connector to the motor isn’t easily accessible and it would be easy enough to run a cord to it once a week and just leave it all as is in the car. Thanks again!
Hi Allen,
Did you use a trickle charger to charge overnight?
Thank you!
Looking for the model of the voltage guage that you show in the post. Thanks
Does the battery have to be mounted upright or can they be laid down? Looking to put a battery in a Jeep and monster truck.
Batteries, even these sealed lead acid batteries should be installed upright and secured into the battery compartment. It is one of those things that you may never have a problem with since it is “Sealed”, but because we are dealing with acid and children I would choose the safe route.
Would keeping something like a Battery Tender Jr hooked up to the new battery make sense? It keeps the float charge at 13.4 volts and looks like it would fall into the perfect range.
I appreciate the help. It was so frustrating to charge the battery all night to only last 60-80 mins. I ordered the expert power 20 AH battery and a digital battery tester to keep track of the charge
Hi,
Would a 12V Lithium Ion battery work? I would imagine it would last longer and also would be lighter.
https://www.amazon.com/12-Volt-Rechargeable-Lithium-Battery/dp/B00JK06CK8
These must be a bit of a newer product. 12V is 12V and it would work. The one you linked to is 10Amp hours so it would be about equivalent to a normal PowerWheels battery in terms of longevity. HOWEVER, I would not recommend a Lithium version because of the dangers of lithium batteries (exploding and high heat fires). The Sealed Lead Acid batteries above are the safest for this use case (Complete depletion, Sealed to prevent acid leakage – especially given the collisions that could happen) Anyway, cool suggestion, but I wouldn’t put a lithium battery in a children’s toy.
I just put a 700CCA car battery in the back of my kiddo’s Mustang (over the axle, behind the seats) after experimenting with several parallel UPS 9.5Ah batteries – I use a 1A trickle charger on a UPS plug mounted under the car and it lasts for days. Cheaper too, you can get a used car battery (couple years old – measure the voltage, should be 12.6v ideally) from a wreckers for $20-$40.
That’s a good source for used batteries and cheap. My main concerns would be the weight of such a large battery and the fact that it would be a standard Lead Acid battery, ie, NOT SEALED. My children have managed to flip their powerwheels on a hill when I had large batteries in and I was glad that I had a SEALED Lead acid battery and I had SECURED it into the compartment. No one wants a corrosive, flammable liquid on their child or a 50lb battery falling on a child just to save a few dollars. The batteries linked above are SEALED lead acid and if SECURED and FUSED properly, keep your modifications safe. BTW, I don’t mean to imply you are being unsafe or making poor choices for your children (I started with standard Lead acid myself), I just want anyone stumbling upon the comments here to know how to be safe! As always, use good judgement when DIYing something for your children or yourself!