A Battery is a Battery

April 1, 2008 – 8:28 am by Matt Radel
Filed under Car Care

When is it not worth getting something done at the dealership? When you can get it done for less than half the price.

I’ve had a lot of automotive issues over the past two weeks with both my Golf and my wife’s Jetta (which I’ll hopefully get to cover in a future post). Among the laundry list of things to replace and fix, the common item for both cars was a new battery.

We had both cars serviced at the dealership. First came the Golf (Thursday), then came the Jetta (Tuesday). As I spoke to the service manger about the Golf on Thursday, he told me that normally a new battery for my Golf would run $194, but today they could do it for $154. I told him no, that I was going to wait on it. Then when we had the Jetta in on Tuesday he told me that a new battery would normally run $194, but they could do it today for $174. Wait a sec. Did I miss something? Did the market price of batteries jump $20 in the last 5 days? I (of course) told them to hold off, and that we’d take care of it later. I wasn’t about to drop over $300 in car batteries.

But then the clouds cleared. At the recommendation of Tekmassa, I took the cars to Walmart where a new battery cost $62 after tax - and they install it for free. I was really impressed by the facilities and staff, and they had the battery installed in 20 minutes. The battery has a warranty of full replacement for 3 years, with pro-rated replacement up to 6. The only catch is that I have to have my receipt in hand for any service, but I keep decent records so it’s not a big deal.

So let’s do the math…
Dealership: $174 + $154 = $328
Walmart: $62 * 2 = $124
Total Savings: $204

So is it worth it to pay a premium for a battery at the dealership? I’d have to say the answer is an emphatic no.