I don’t need it to be great, I need it to run the car while I sell the car.
Long and way overcomplicated story, I’d had this car I need to sell in the possession of a family friend who was brokering it for me, who had it on somebody else’s lot. The friend died suddenly, the car was returned to me, and everything about it is a giant pain in my ass. I’m thinking it was allowed to go dead on the lot, and that maybe they jumped it to drive it back over to me, and me not knowing that I just parked it, and now it’s dead dead dead. So dead I couldn’t jump it myself; had to call AAA.
The AAA guy got it running last night (enough for me to get the odometer reading which I need to retitle it which is ALSO another pain in my ass) but said that it’s going to be hit or miss whether it’ll start again. We ran it for an hour last night, we’ll try it tonight, if it doesn’t crank I need a new battery.
If I do have to get a new battery, where do I go to get the absolutely rock bottom “what do you expect when you pay cash for a $4,000 car” battery?
If you get a used one, bring a voltmeter with you so you can see if the battery still has charge.
Take the battery to an auto parts store and they can check it to see if it has bad cells. If it’s still good, you might be able to get a trickle-charger to charge it back up.
I was going to suggest the possibility of a trickle charger–that worked for me this spring and cost about $40 or $50, but that was just on a car that was overwintered for about six months and the battery itself was no more than two years old. A new car battery you should be able to find for $100 at a place like Advanced Auto Parts or AutoZone. I don’t know if the OP considers that “cheap” or not, but that’s what I personally would do.
Walmart recently starting offering a “second - line” battery for IIRC $45-55. Their previous batteries were $100+. I wouldn’t deal with a junk yard on electrical items unless you already have a good relationship with them; plus, in a $4000 car a buyer will be pleased that they’re getting a new battery. Not so much in a $1000 car.
40-50 is more what I was looking for, if it turns out we need one. (And yes, looking new certainly couldn’t hurt.) That’s the thing with all this crap - anybody looking for a car and looking at this one has many choices and little stuff like that might put them over the edge.
Like the title is perfectly fine and legal, it just has the sale information filled out from a guy who didn’t buy it. And I have a letter from him and the form I’d need to submit with the sale… but if you were buying a car on Craigslist and they told you “oh the title’s fine it’s just a little wonky, there’s a form…” you would run, not walk, right? Because there are other fish in the sea. But to retitle it I needed the odometer reading and to get that I needed the car to start and oh my god I hate this car now so much.
NETA - BTW the AAA guy did test the battery and said it’s damaged, that it might or might not crank again. That if it cranks today, to run it once a day if I can until it sells, and that if it doesn’t, to get a new one and use that as a selling point. Very nice guy.
wherever I’ve been there has been a Northern Battery nearby. Its always cheaper than the retail stores. I believe they assemble and charge them on site there. The nearest one to me is in the industrial park of my town.
If you spend enough time looking for bargain/used batteries and have some luck, you may get what you need for, say $35. If you buy the $100 battery you get:
[ul]a quick solution[/ul]
[ul]a reliable fix to your annoying problem[/ul]
[ul]a car that will fetch a bit more when you sell it[/ul]
Is that for a sealed battery or a wet? If the OP only needs it to work while he sells the car either is fine. But in the long run I’d stay away from batteries that need water. They can be no problem at all, or, like in my case, they can be a major pain in the ass.
I was at batteries plus tonight and they had a sealed battery for $109 with a $10 rebate making it$99. If you turn in the old one you don’t have to pay the core deposit. And they’ll install the battery for free (not such a big deal, but hey, why get your hands dirty if you don’t need to). Probably more than the OP wants to pay though.
So ask $4100 and point out that it has a new {brand name} battery in it. It might even help give the impression that the vehicle has been well cared for because you didn’t buy a cheapola battery.