[autotran]

I see this thread is old but it was never answered so here is my answer.
You can tilt it out but with great difficulty. You have to move the top bar out of the way and then disconnect any wires and anything else that might be in the way. Disconnect the battery next. It's very hard to reach the negative post to unscrew so I left it connected and remove the positive post 1st instead. This isn't recommended as you might hit metal and short it when disconnecting. My battery had the original factory rubber sleeve that was on it. This made it harder to remove since it made the battery longer than normal. When you tilt it out it pushes the air filter housing quite a bit and you have to use a lot of force to get past it. Once out, I disconnected the negative post. I then installed the new battery connecting just the negative post. I could not get it in no matter how hard I pushed it against the air filter housing. I finally used my tire pry bar to force the housing far enough over to get the battery past it. I then reconnected everything. Nothing was permanently dented, bent or damaged.

I think that if you can work from under the car, it would be much easier to loosen the 3 bolts that hold the air filter housing in place if they are not rusted too badly. I personally couldn't work from under the car and I couldn't reach them from the top either. I never did find a You Tube video showing how to replace a 1996 (or possibly 1995) V6 Ciera car battery. It is definitely different from the 1994 and earlier model.

We have owned this Ciera V6 since Aug 1996 and it has less than 90K miles on it. It still looks pretty new under the hood, much neater/cleaner than any Ciera's I ever looked at on You Tube. It was ordered from the factory by us 1 week before the factory shutdown, we just made it. It is the best car we ever owned/bought, very reliable with excellent gas mileage. Only an alternator replacement with normal battery, ball joint, tie rod ends, brake pads and rotor replacements. Right now the dash lights are out and it is not a fuse. It looks like they might be hard to get working.