Last time I took my car to the shop, the guy told me my battery was low. It was at 297 and was supposed to be around 550. What's the "danger zone" where I need to worry about getting the battery changed?

Change it now, that way you don't have to worry about it later. When you're running as low as you are now it'll get harder and harder to start in the cold, until the point that it doesn't start at all. And it's something you can do yourself in 5 minutes.

Dude, I live in North Carolina now, it doesn't get cold enough here on a regular basis for that to be a problem.

I just don't know what the life of a battery is, so basically I'm wondering what this reading is telling me timewise, especially if the battery doesn't have to hit 0 for it to be nonfunctional.

get a battery

Okay, I just don't know how to change them. How do you do it?

take off the 2 cables and unscrew the battery, remove it... now the reverse with the new battery

make sure the battery is charged before you put it in or you won't be able to start your car!

if you can't charge it, make sure you have jumper cables to jump off your old battery

Okay... how do I make sure it's charged?

the place you buy it can care it "enough" start your car when you buy it.

Rad, thanks for all the advice people.

lick both terminals at the same time.

don't drop anything across the terminals... you can tack weld once with a battery, but then it's dead. I know Sears will toss it on the charger for you before you take it and most batteries have built in terminal caps.

batterys come charged

dude if you go to auto zone they will do it for you for free if you are that worried

the last two batteries I got I needed to charge.. it was in the 90's. one was used from a junk yard and the other was from sears.

Cost is quality. buy something decent with a good warranty. IE Interstate batteries.