Hi all,

My Alphard was scheduled for a service at Toyota this morning but rather embarrassingly I had to cancel as it has a flat battery. I have no idea why it's flat, but that's for another time.

How do I charge it? The manual (the red translated one) seems a little vague and I have no idea where to put the +/- clips from the charger. Thanks for any help.

There's a 12v battery positive terminal under the fuse box cover under the bonnet. It's under a red rubber cover in a black plastic fuse box.

You first need to take off the grey 'Toyota hybrid' cover - pull out the right side to unlatch it then pull it towards you to release the two other push pins. Then you'll find the black fuse box underneath. Remove the lid to find the red terminal.

That red terminal is where the positive wire of the charger goes, the negative goes to any exposed metal body part, eg screws.

I'll try and post some pictures later ...

Edited October 23Oct 23 by Ptarmigan

Hey all, first post.
I got my 2012 Alphard this year and the battery quit on me on the morning I was supposed to drive to the airport for summer holidays! After clamping direct to the battery in the back, which seemed to work, I got the secret sauce from the cabbie who took me to the train station to get to the airport.
The manual has a couple of lovely pics of where the jump start locations are, p402 and 493. I'll attempt an upload here, but as I'm new it might not be allowed.

Mine had actually died: after a charge it only came up to 10v, indicating a dead cell, so I got an original replacement (that cost a fortune).

Edited October 24Oct 24 by sweavo
add dead cell story

On 10/23/2026 at 3:41 PM, Ptarmigan said:

There's a 12v battery positive terminal under the fuse box cover under the bonnet. It's under a red rubber cover in a black plastic fuse box.

You first need to take off the grey 'Toyota hybrid' cover - pull out the right side to unlatch it then pull it towards you to release the two other push pins. Then you'll find the black fuse box underneath. Remove the lid to find the red terminal.

That red terminal is where the positive wire of the charger goes, the negative goes to any exposed metal body part, eg screws.

I'll try and post some pictures later ...

Got it! Thanks as ever Ted.

16 hours ago, sweavo said:

Hey all, first post.
I got my 2012 Alphard this year and the battery quit on me on the morning I was supposed to drive to the airport for summer holidays! After clamping direct to the battery in the back, which seemed to work, I got the secret sauce from the cabbie who took me to the train station to get to the airport.
The manual has a couple of lovely pics of where the jump start locations are, p402 and 493. I'll attempt an upload here, but as I'm new it might not be allowed.

Mine had actually died: after a charge it only came up to 10v, indicating a dead cell, so I got an original replacement (that cost a fortune).

Awesome. Thanks very much Steve.