# Tips to eliminate core charges



## DIYguy (Sep 18, 2008)

jaspersk said:


> This might not be much of a secret but I wanted to share my success purchasing my first battery pack without paying core charges. I bought 20 batteries from Sam's Club. I have read that others have been able to convince the manager to sell the batteries without a core charge but I didn't have any success doing that. Our local store said there is absolutely no mark up on the batteries. The only discount they could offer was $3/battery and that was if I purchased an entire semi-load. Yikes. Core charges were $9/battery however, they did say that any old battery would work for trade in, even smaller motorcycle batteries.
> 
> I was able to locate 20 old batteries in 5 days time by posting ads on Craigslist, Freecycle, my local company bulletin board. There were other ads from scrappers looking to make money. The title of my ad said "Need dead car, truck, cycle batteries for electric car project." I got lots of responses with people curious about the project willing to donate some batteries if I'd tell them a little more about it. In the body of the ad, I offered to trade the batteries for some skilled labor. Almost all of the respondents said I could have the batteries for free because "they liked the project" and wanted to help out. Only two people took me up on my offer for skilled labor. One asked me to change the spark plug wires on her car (took me 5 minutes) and another asked me to change their dining room light fixture in trade for 5 batteries (took me 10-15 min).


Good for you man, nice work.


----------

