Being the broke guy I am, I shudder when I find out I need to spend money on anything that’s not food or booze.
My dammed car battery dropped it’s guts last week. New cheap assed pissy ones at Super Cheap Auto (SCA) start at $117. Last time I checked their site a few years back, they had new ones for $50 and 6 month warranties.
No way was I paying $117+ just for a battery. The whole car only cost me $250. (1993 model worth $16,000 new)
- Plan A, nick a battery off someone I don’t like … aarhh but alas, I don’t dislike anyone that much.
- Plan B, buy a good second hand battery.
- Plan C, push and roll start the car.
- Plan D, get a steady job and buy a whole new car with a new battery in it. Warning Will Robinson!!!!!!!!
Back to Plan B … a year ago I bought one of those battery load testers (left) off eBay for about $25 bucks.
There’s a local recycling guy, George, at 50 Harper Street that buys old batteries. I sold him five old ones (used in a solar system) a few weeks ago. After mentioning my car battery was on it’s last amps, (it would go flat after 3 days of not driving) he told me he sells good second hand ones as well.
What has all this got to do with beating the casino? It has to do with taking $40 and betting… it on George, rather than betting it on Conrad. (Gold Coast Casino)
When going to second hand battery recyclers, we can take our own testers and test the bet before the chips are on the table.
So I’m at George’s two days ago, and they gave me a choice of a dozen batteries to test. I pushed all SCA branded ones away. (LOL)
New pissy $117 batteries at SCA are only 300CCA.
CCA … “cold cranking amps”. Layman’s lingo for how long you can turn the key before the battery goes flat.
I picked out a Supercharge GOLD PLUS (pictured) rated at 650CCA.
It had been sitting in the storage shed for Bon Jovi only knew how long … yet the volts (also shown on the load tester) were 12.9v. NICE!!!
But good volt’s doesn’t mean a good battery. The one that just shit itself in my car would charge up to 13.8v no worriers … but it didn’t have enough reserve pow wow (aka amps) to zap a flea’s winkie.
Next I did a 10 second 100amp load test. Pow wowiee, the meter measuring needle stayed at the 600CCA minimum mark.
I told the dealer I would take it and left $40 worth of chips on the table.
Was it a winning bet? The Supercharge GOLD PLUS I bought are $185 new at Autobarn. I paid $40.
If that $40 gamble lasts for more than 12 months (the pissy warranty on the SCA $117 300CCA batteries) I’ll be a $77 savings winner. If it lasts longer, even better!
Gambling is fun, as long as you can take your own meter to measure and make sure the odds are in you favor.
note last update 25/08/19: I weeded through all the Australian eBay sellers (about 12 of them) selling these and picked the one with the best feedback (99.4%) and more than 10 in stock with free shipping all for under $25.00. My commission comes out of eBay’s commission – you pay no extra.
