What's the going rate for a 2nd hand car battery from a breakers yard?

Mistral001

I suspect that the market for these batteries are for those people who want to swap a nearly new battery for an old one just before they sell their car.  It takes all sorts I suppose.

However if there was a way of telling what year the battery was manufactured, it might be worthwhile of get a say two year old second hand battery, which should last another 4 or 5 years, if it was only going to cost you a fiver. 

couriervanman

Well batteries have a manufacture date on them......but they are not as simple to work out

EdGasketTheSecond

The scrappy round here wants about £25 for a battery; no way is that worth it when a new one starts at only about £10 more.

facade

EdGasketTheSecond said:

The scrappy round here wants about £25 for a battery; no way is that worth it when a new one starts at only about £10 more.

They are supposed to weigh in at around a fiver (about 45-50p per kilo of battery), so I'd expect at the very least £10 for one, they'd give £5 for it when you took it back

Homer_home

Lead acid batteries are very reliable as long as they are kept charged and not left discharged for long periods which kills them

There is nothing wrong with getting a second hand battery from a scrappy you should pay around a tenner , I have done this for many years with no issues 

Your car will not die on a motorway , the alternator provides the power required whilst driving , not the battery , if the battery develops an internal short then you would have issues but that can happen to any battery , if you stall the car you're in trouble though! Anything else is just scaremongering 

onlyfoolsandparking

Homer_home said:

Lead acid batteries are very reliable as long as they are kept charged and not left discharged for long periods which kills them

There is nothing wrong with getting a second hand battery from a scrappy you should pay around a tenner , I have done this for many years with no issues 

Your car will not die on a motorway , the alternator provides the power required whilst driving , not the battery , if the battery develops an internal short then you would have issues but that can happen to any battery , if you stall the car you're in trouble though! Anything else is just scaremongering 

I'm no mechanic but that's not my understanding of what the alternator does and running your car with a dead/faulty battery for a lengthy period is a sure fire way to fry your alternator and that's why when my battery died a few days ago I wouldn't chance driving it the 15 miles to my mechanics, I went in my other car and picked the new battery up. (experts feel free to correct me as I'm genuinely curious) 

AdrianC

onlyfoolsandparking said:

Homer_home said:

Your car will not die on a motorway , the alternator provides the power required whilst driving , not the battery , if the battery develops an internal short then you would have issues but that can happen to any battery , if you stall the car you're in trouble though! Anything else is just scaremongering 

I'm no mechanic but that's not my understanding of what the alternator does and running your car with a dead/faulty battery for a lengthy period is a sure fire way to fry your alternator and that's why when my battery died a few days ago I wouldn't chance driving it the 15 miles to my mechanics, I went in my other car and picked the new battery up. (experts feel free to correct me as I'm genuinely curious) 

So what do you think the alternator's doing...?

The alternator is putting out up to 100A at 14.5v to charge the battery. That's far more than the car's using - so, yes, effectively the car is just running on the alternator. Even if the battery was totally flat, you could jump start it, and it'd run just fine the instant the jumpleads are off...

A very flat battery will put more load on the alternator for longer, because there's a chunk of juice going in, so the voltage reg doesn't let it "run light", but that won't kill the alternator.

onlyfoolsandparking

I actually thought exactly the same but having a bit of time on my hands whilst waiting for Monday to come and getting in to mechanics I went on 'the Google' checking if I could drive my car with flat battery and the minefield of info that I came across was truly mind blowing. It was a simple enough question, can i jump start my car and then drive it to mechanics? I read somewhere about damaging alternator to which I thought ah right better not chance it then.

If I had have known I could have just jumped it then drove to mechanics it would have saved me all the hassle of pulling seat out to get old battery out, no wonder my pal (mechanic) looked at me strangely when I walked in his place carrying old battery lol.

Should have trusted my own judgement, as I said I'm no mechanic but then again neither is Google it would appear.

patman99

I have a small battery checker that I got off Amazon. It can check a battery and give you the CCA and battery state of health.

AdrianC

onlyfoolsandparking said:

Should have trusted my own judgement, as I said I'm no mechanic but then again neither is Google it would appear.

Could be worse. Could be YouChoob.