Lead from car batteries?

Sasquatch

Sasquatch

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I'm not into casting (yet), but I'm more pissed off that I turn in a battery and get $10-20 when I have to buy it for $200-$300.

Is it worth trying to get the lead out of a car battery- is it worth more than the money returned from a core charge?
 
Both not worth it, there is less lead than you think and it involves a bunch of hazardous materials and a lot of work to get it to a usable state. If you poke around the internet you’ll find folks that have done it successfully, but you won’t find many that do it more than once. It’s impractical.
 
GymB said:
Both not worth it, there is less lead than you think and it involves a bunch of hazardous materials and a lot of work to get it to a usable state. If you poke around the internet you’ll find folks that have done it successfully, but you won’t find many that do it more than once. It’s impractical.
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Thanks- yeah, I was watching some videos and it looks messy. I was more motivated by the cost of new batteries thinking lead must be the value of gold lately...
 
Check around at mom and pop tire places. Usually they will sell you a 5 gallon bucket of wheel weights for 15 to 20 bucks. That's more than they get for scrap. The only problem is there are getting to be more and more unusable wheel weights.
 
There's lead in it, but there's a lot of other toxic chemicals in there too. Unless you have a safe, clean way to deal with all that, you're really risking killing your brain cells and making your future children flipper babies. As tempting as car battery lead is, I wouldn't try to get it out unless I was desperate.
 
I don't think it's worth the hassle.

You're not strictly paying for the lead in a car battery...you're paying for all the engineering that went into designing and building the battery, from materials all the way through to labor and transportation costs.

The battery I bought for my youngest daughter's Edge weighs about 40 pounds. That's not all lead, of course, but the core deposit probably works out to about the scrap price for the lead itself, maybe just a bit less. If you're looking at a deal between the core cost and the cost of lead for casting, you're probably not going to break even here. In fact, when you consider the labor that would go into this (as well as being sure you don't do something stupid that gets you chemically burned in the process of cutting the battery open and disposing of the acid), you're just not going to see any savings.

For information, I just bought a Duracell battery for my daughter's Edge at Sams for $130 plus tax, which as a three year warranty from date of purchase. Sams does not do core deposits, but they'll dispose of the old battery if you want. I took it (and another one laying in the in-laws yard) to AutoZone and got a $20 store credit for them. My advice is to look for a good deal in the price of the battery, like the Duracell car batteries at Sams, to make the biggest savings, then visit the car parts store with the old battery for a few extra bucks and be done with it.
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
For information, I just bought a Duracell battery for my daughter's Edge at Sams for $130 plus tax, which as a three year warranty from date of purchase. Sams does not do core deposits, but they'll dispose of the old battery if you want. I took it (and another one laying in the in-laws yard) to AutoZone and got a $20 store credit for them. My advice is to look for a good deal in the price of the battery, like the Duracell car batteries at Sams, to make the biggest savings, then visit the car parts store with the old battery for a few extra bucks and be done with it.
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Sam's charged me a $20 core charge and then gave me the $20 credit for the old battery on the Duracell battery I bought last week. Shows it on the receipt.
 
beamernc said:
Sam's charged me a $20 core charge and then gave me the $20 credit for the old battery on the Duracell battery I bought last week. Shows it on the receipt.
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Huh! Mine didn't...and the Sams site says no core charge. Meh...you got your $20 back, so alls well! Congratulations!
 
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