Battery prices

Zorba

"The Veiled Male"
Original poster
Lifetime Supporting Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2020
Messages
23,876
Location
Merritt Island, Fl
I found this interesting...

After a long confused thrash yesterday, involving a power outage, a pair of blown transformers somewhere within hearing range of the house, and a confused generator control system, I found that I need to replace the almost 4 year old Interstate battery in my whole house Generac. I borrowed the battery from the inoperative/wrecked Fiat for the meantime.

So - I can drive an hour to an hour and a half round trip to the nearest Interstate store, or I can buy one from the mechanic that works on my Mercedes who is literally within walking distance of my house. So I call "Betty" at the shop, she can have a new Interstate in for me on Wednesday for $159.00. Ouch - battery prices sure have gone up, yea go ahead and get it in for me please...

Just happened to be in Wal*Mart later, so took a peek to see what their "Max-whatever" batteries cost in the same size - $149.00! For $10 more, I'll take the Interstate...
 
I had to buy a tiny little 151R battery for my daughter's Honda Fit a couple weeks ago. I was expecting it to be around $125 it was over $200.
 
Have you had to buy spark plugs yet? That was another sticker shock for me.

Don't worry though, with our world leaders we're in good hands!
 
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Reactions: Zorba
Building Back Better!!!

Just a couple weeks ago I had to replace one of my 235/85R16 Duratrac tires due to the sidewall not being able to be plugged. Mounted and balanced cost me $321.24

Back in 2018 I paid $970.28 for all four or $242.57 each, so an increase of just under 32.5% over 4 yrs.

FWIW, I used usinflationcalculator.com to see what the increase was by year and it showed:

2019 $246.97 increase of 1.8%
2020 $250.01 increase of 3.1% since 2018
2021 $261.76 increase of 7.9% since 2018
2022 $287.88 increase of 18.7% since 2018

I'm not sure if the 2022 results on that page aren't quite up to date or if the shop is getting too greedy but they're still cheaper than the dealership for anything I need done and I'm sure none of their costs of doing business didn't go up.

Also here's my flat when I tried to plug the sidewall just to get home without changing a tire in the cold woods .
IMG_20221031_112056029.jpg

It just wouldn't hold air, maybe I should have shaved the peach fuzz off that tennis ball before shoving it in there.
IMG_20221031_112059991.jpg