Car battery prices, up 46%

seatbeltnoob

I searched, was surprised nobody is talking about this. Have car battery prices gone through the roof or what?


I bought a bosch s3 012 from carparts4less for £41 in January 2016.


Had some issues with the battery today, wont start, RAC came and did a test and basically condemned it, dont stop the engine they said, drive home in one drive. They would put a new battery in for £110. I declined as it was too expensive.


Came home thinking I'll show them, I'll buy another one for £41 and save myself £70 from RAC man. Turns out, the price has gone up to £59. Still a saving none the less, but that's one hell of a jump in 3 years.


What gives?

DUTR

So £51 labour and delivery or thereabouts.

motorguy

So a sample size of one?

The battery 3 years ago might have been subject to a specific offer at the time.

I dont think you can conclude battery prices are up 46% generally.

facade

Pretty much everything is massively more expensive than last year. Try doing the food shopping!


Apparently, it is because of Brexit.


More likely the rain has made all the crops fail, so prices have to go up, but the dry weather before made them fail, so prices had to go up.....

JamoLew

Are you comparing exact like for like.

Otherwise, your £41 battery lasted just over 3 years, maybe the £110 one will last for 10 making it cheaper per year

If it is like for like, I would swap brands. A battery should be lasting longer than that

tonyh66

your battery is probably just flat and needs a deep charge, the RAC man was trying to earn some comission.

Johno100

The RAC have form for this.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/2295917/bbc-watchdog-investigation-finds-rac-tells-some-customers-to-replace-perfectly-good-car-batteries/

seatbeltnoob

tonyh66 wrote: »

your battery is probably just flat and needs a deep charge, the RAC man was trying to earn some comission.

That was my gut feeling. I took the battery out and charging it using an external battery charger. It's charging pretty fast which is normally a good sign. Batteries in bad shape tend to charge really slowly.


I tried to externally charge my sister in laws 8 year old battery, it took a very long time to charge and then after all that charging only cranked the engine once before it failed.


This battery of mine has gone from <50% to 75% in half an hour.



If this is just a personal car then I would just keep going with the battery and/or carry around a jump start kit with me. But I use it for business use so that little bit of doubt put in by the RAC makes me want to just get a new battery for reassurance.


RAC policy is that, since they've come out now for a battery, if they come out again for the same battery fault they will charge a £60 fee and I will have no choice but to buy a £11o battery (which I hear is just a cheap rebranded battery, but they give a 5 year warranty for).


The cause of the flat in my bosch s3 me and my missues were in the car with our 7 month old. I normally never do this, but I had the key in the ignition turned half way so the radio was on, and because it was a hot day the AC must have been turned on too. Was sat in the car for 5-10 mins eating sandwiches and then come to drive off the car would not crank at all. Not even half a crank.


Prior to that I had my satnav left in the car on charge (accidently), for about 2 days. It's an old VW golf (2003) so it doesn't turn off the power supply to the cigarette lighter when the car is turned off and locked. So it could have caused a slow but long power drain on the battery.


I suggested to the RAC man that I'll take the battery straight home and charge it up. He said that's going to be no use. One a battery is drained so low, it causes physcial damage and it's probably not going to hold much charger. The voltage reading when it was flat was 12.2v, the report suggests they managed to get it to 12.7v after boosting it for a whiile.

onomatopoeia99

seatbeltnoob wrote: »

The cause of the flat in my bosch s3 me and my missues were in the car with our 7 month old. I normally never do this, but I had the key in the ignition turned half way so the radio was on, and because it was a hot day the AC must have been turned on too. Was sat in the car for 5-10 mins eating sandwiches and then come to drive off the car would not crank at all. Not even half a crank.


Prior to that I had my satnav left in the car on charge (accidently), for about 2 days. It's an old VW golf (2003) so it doesn't turn off the power supply to the cigarette lighter when the car is turned off and locked. So it could have caused a slow but long power drain on the battery.

I've never owned a Golf, does the AC pump not get driven from the engine rather than the battery? So if you sit in it with the engine off but ignition on the air conditioning doesn't run ...

The way you've described events it sounds like the battery is on its last legs.

seatbeltnoob

onomatopoeia99 you're probably right, I didn't recall the AC running, if I was aware I would have turned the ignition off because I know that you shouldnt have componenets running without the engine running unless absolutely necessary.


I just recall seeing the blowers dial left on and AC button pressed. Maybe that wasn't the cause of the drain, perhaps just the radio alone and perhaps the window up/down.

DoaM

And if you rely on your car for business, a 16 year old car (2003 VW Golf) is probably a maintenance nightmare waiting to happen.