If a garage has some old batteries then are they worth any money as scrap? Or would be expected to pay for a car battery to be taken away?
I would like to use an aged (but not totally wrecked) car battery for some application.
I was thinking of asking my local one-man garage if I could have an old battery for no more than a couple of pounds.
But I don't want to find that the car battery has a scrap value greater than what I would pay!
They do have a monetary value but you have to have loads of them to make it worthwhile, I would've thought a small garage wouldn't have enough to mind you taking one for free.
However you'll proabably fine that any spare battery they have will be totally shot.
John
Currently round about £35/tonne, delivered to a scrapyard. Reckon on 80 batteries per tonne. If you carry more than 5, you need to be a registered waste carrier and have a special document from your local waste authority, probably your County Council. This document costs £10.00 or more.
Having said all that, your garage will probably just let you take a couple as they get zilch for them. They will probably be totally knackered though.
Steve
Ask around locally. They do have a scrap value, but generally it is not much. Hopefully enough that people will scrap them rather than dump them as they have some rather nasty stuff in them.
my best friend collects junk batteries, sorts thru all he gets for ones that are still usable and puts them to use on his windmill. the cost of new batteries exceeeds the value of electricity his 14 foot wind machine can generate at many times of the year. i give him my olds batteries when they are ok.
smart folks dont wait till they completely die! I used to do that but not only is it inconvenient but leads to many more alternator failures. I now buy premium batteries, with longer warranties but replace them every 3 to 4 years.
a new batter costs say 80 dollars, divide by 4 years thats 20 bucks a year. sure i might get 6 years out of the battery i tossed, but that only changes the cost per year to about 14 bucks. runs risk of getting stranded usually in zero weather when marginal batteries are more likely to die:(
truly what is 6 bucks a year??? for convenience. I tend to holds onto vehicles forever, while many buy new cars, now THAT costs thousands extra while mine a measely 6 bucks a year.
lots of people replace them early and the batteries are available:) garages just toss recycle them anyway. once the collecting person accumulates enough you just swap the truly junk battery for the garage collected marginal one, so once its rolling the garage loses nothing.
now someone is sure to post how they had a battery go 9 years and its still working and i am nuts, this happens every time i post my method.
honestly i dont care my method works just fine for me..................!
-snip-
I've had a battery go 9 years, [a '7 year' battery] -- and it was fine when I noticed how old it was and replaced it.
But. . . . We're both probably nuts-- but I have an aversion to jump starting cars in below zero degree weather so I usually replace mine when they have 4-5 yrs on them and I see a sale.
to the OP- Your local mechanic will probably know which batteries were just 'rotated out' and which had problems-- so strike up a conversation with him.
Jim
Go down your local scrapyard rather than garage. They'll have plenty that were fine when the scrapped cars were brought in.
Recent market prices for drained scrap batteries is $0.13/lb in truckloads at the scrapyard. A bigger battery weighs about 50 lbs, so that's maybe $6 worth. But not for one at a time.
New pure lead is $0.53/lb lately. So it takes about $26 worth of raw material lead alone to make a battery.
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