Would you buy a used car battery for $50

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If the battery date code revealed a fairly recent manufacture.
If the voltage was 12.6v or higher.
If My temperature compensated hydrometer revealed 1.275 or higher on all cells.

Then I'd buy it.

With no Tools for testing, No way.
 
If this is for one of your cars in winter, then save up and buy a new one. It's a false economy to buy a used battery at that price. I might pay $10 for a used one... The new one will last you longer and you have half a chance of getting the car to start in cold. Lord knows your cars have other problems, don't saddle one of them with a weak battery too!

If this is for a car that you're going to sell next week, then it's a big maybe...but again, $50 is too high, you can get a new one for not much more, and that would be a selling point for the clunker that you're trying to sell.

A new one is better in both cases.
 
If the battery has a recent date on it and seller can give you a reasonable explanation for offering it, then maybe offer him $25.00. Offering prices are very negotiable and if seller wants quick cash, they'll take twenty five or thirty bucks.
You can almost always get a 30-40% off coupon code for AAP, so a hundred buck new battery with warranty and installation would be $60.00-70.00.
The used batt only makes sense if it's dirt cheap, since you are accepting considerable risk.
 
Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
If the battery has a recent date stamp and the seller can provide a solid reason why the battery is up for sale I might consider it, such as a totaled vehicle that is being parted out, possibly the battery was just replaced, but I would never buy a used battery with a date code older than 3 years.

If you had an advance auto parts near by you can get a autocraft silver for only a little more with coupon codes regularly going around.

+1

I get O'Reilly near me to match rural king's $64.99 for their Gold battery, so I get it even cheaper then AAP but AAP is a no hassle way of getting 50 off 125...
 
Hello, NO for all the reasons given so far.

I see the "used tire and battery market" as being ONLY for people who have to keep going then and there.

EXAMPLES: 1) Used tires are a profound rip-off. They're sold to cab drivers who need to keep rolling immediately. A used tire for ridiculous money could only be worth it if a cabbie needed to keep driving through his rented 12 hour shift.

Used batteries fall into the same category. If your battery dies in the "big bad city" and you can buy one and drive home, it might be worth it. There's no reason for someone to touch a working battery so there'd never be a good one for sale. You'd have to be buying a charged up baddie.

Years ago Power Battery was a manufacturer in Paterson, NJ. A guy there told me ~1% of batteries they took in could be revived to a worthwhile degree on their super charger. I assume the "good ones" were sold in bulk to les Miserables. Kira
 
I've bought so called "used" batteries & tires from salvage yards when the vehicle they came off of use a new vehicle and totaled.

How bout tires for a van off a new P/U with less than 500 miles on it. It had been t-boned by a semi.
 
^^^ Reading the replies, so far.

Seems like an AAP Silver, like the one in that Volvo...

Who is gonna be the first to bash me on my "ghetto battery strap"
laugh.gif
(*P.S.: The Honda doesn't have one.)

smile.gif


Ok. So. AAP Silver is looking like a win...
 
I wouldn't buy a used battery esp from a wrecked car. The crash a lot of times destroys the battery and you can't see the damage. When I worked at the body shop, I can't count the batteries that died there.
 
My mom's Focus got a used battery for like $25. It died within a week and the little ghetto corner shop gave us another one and a few months later the car was totaled so I'm glad we didn't buy a new battery. Would have been a waste.
 
Originally Posted By: jcwit
I've bought so called "used" batteries & tires from salvage yards when the vehicle they came off of use a new vehicle and totaled.

How bout tires for a van off a new P/U with less than 500 miles on it. It had been t-boned by a semi.


Ditto.

Both the vehicle formerly known as "Thunder the Wonder Pig" and the ever faithful "Bluesmobile" have used batteries. I paid 25 bucks for each one. At the time, each one was a year old and that was back in 2012.

The "You pull it yard" I visit has a rack by the front gate with used batteries. Simply check the date and choose accordingly.

There is also a shop over in Orlando that rebuilds batteries. I'm going to check them out tomorrow for my son-in-laws car as I will be in Orlando and will drive right by the place anyway. A "rebuilt" battery is 25 dollars. I've got one of those in the "Luv" machine that is going on two years in service now.

As for junkyard tires, that's where my nifty set of "Barum" tires came from. 20 bucks per tire already on the wheel balanced and ready to roll. All I had to do was bolt 'em on and I'm riding.
 
$25 sounds a bit more reasonable, and only if I didn't rely on the car to get to work and had a AAA membership.
 
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