Refurbished Battery From Interstate Battery

I just met a floor cleaning machine (commercial) service tech in our company. He was servicing the batteries (total 6 inside, deep cycle type) for that machine. He mentioned that he buys refurbished batteries for his own truck and boat from Interstate Battery (
Interstate Batteries | Every Battery for Every Need
). It's fascinate, because I did the same 3 years ago for my 2004 Prius. It only cost me $30. After 70K miles, it still working great.

Maybe some of you who is willing to take some risks will consider this option to save some money. I don't think refurbished ones are any different from new, except the housing is old.

Happy Priusing!

Allen

 

$30. Come on!

 

You maybe right. I did not ask for Prius battery, but they check the size and said yes they have a refurbished one, same size.
As long as it's 12V, I don't really care much else. It's just used for starting the system, not to crank the starter anyway.

 

The way I look at it is like this:

Toyota sold more than 1 million Prius, and I have not heard of one incident of battery explosion. But let's say there is one case, and I missed. Chance of battery explosion is 1 in a million.
However, the battery is under a hard plastic cover, so the chance of acid spill to passenger department when it explode is about 10%.
The carpet like material above the plastic cover might reduce the chance of spill to 1%.
I happen to have the habit to always use the plastic sheet covering trunk area, 99% of time, which further reduced spill chance to 0.1%.

So I admit, we do have about 0.1% chance that the acid will reach back of my head, when battery does explode.

Luckily, I still have thick hair shielding my back head skin. To cause real damage, the acid needs to hit the windshield and bounce back to my face, at 0.01% chance.

That's 0.01% chance on top of one in a million, the chance of battery explosion!

By saving $100 on battery, I dramatically increased the risk of being hurt by acid on face due to battery explosion, from almost zero to the level of 0.01% * 1/1000000.

Based on NHTSA, fatality rate of automobile per 100 million miles is 1.xx on average.
(http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812055.pdf)
If I drive 25K per year for 40 years in my life, the chance of death due to car accident is roughly 1%. That's obviously much much more scary than acid accident.

So I decided to pay more attention on driving safety, and that $100 may help on that matter, such as buying a cup of coffee.

Hope my "analysis" will ease the concern. Happy Priusing!

 

I am not sure if this is the car with exploded battery. If not, then it is a typical way of media exaggerate the claim to mislead public. Insurance company has vested interest to make us believe that there are so many dangers out there, and it justifies the premium we are paying. The matter of fact is, nowadays cars are much more safer than before, partly due to easy law suites and disproportional penalty when company lost a case. Many people think that's a good thing, but they don't realise they are paying heavily for the last 99.99% safety, both on purchasing and operation (mpg), whether they want or not. Like many other things, this is a form of hidden tax.