Price Shock: Mercedes Hybrid Driver Stunned After Learning New Battery Costs More Than Value Of Car

[rangerrebew]

 Of Car!
Price Shock: Mercedes Hybrid Driver Stunned After Learning New Battery Costs More Than Value Of Car!

By P Gosselin on 11. February 2022
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The price for a new battery was 18,000 pounds – not including the hourly wage of £200. But the Mercedes hybrid at the time was only worth around £12,000, thus making little sense to repair a car that’s only 8 years old.

Image source: Battery University

Electric cars have a host of technical disadvantages associated with them, among them: range, weight, a general lack of charging infrastructure and the huge demand for materials to build their batteries.

Sticker shock

Another is cost, as one British owner of a used hybrid Mercedes experienced when he got a price shock after taking his car in for repairs, reports the online DW24.de.

Leicester resident Ranjit Singh had bought the 8-year old hybrid car from a Mercedes-Benz dealership 4 years ago, paying some £27,000. At the time it had 80,000 km on it.

Four years later, last month, the pensioner took it in for repair work and was “horrified” after learning the replacement battery would come with the hefty price tag of £15,000  plus the hourly wage of £200! To make matters worse, the pensioner researched to check the vehicle’s value: the Mercedes hybrid was only worth £12,850 according to Auto Trader .

https://notrickszone.com/2022/02/11/price-shock-mercedes-hybrid-driver-stunned-after-learning-new-battery-costs-more-than-value-of-car/

[Cyber Liberty]

Ayup.  They are expensive.

[roamer_1]

Ayup.  They are expensive.

I want to try rebuilding one of them battery packs. It doesn't look hard.

[Kamaji]

Ha-ha!!!

[Fishrrman]

It's a Mercedes.
EVERYTHING costs more.

[Elderberry]

I want to try rebuilding one of them battery packs. It doesn't look hard.

It would take a lot of testing down to which cells are bad. The issue I see with only replacing bad cells, is the fact that all the cells are of the same age. If only bad cells are replaced, how long would it be before more cells go bad. I don't know how many cells are in a Mercedes. Tesla has around 3,000 cells.

[roamer_1]

It would take a lot of testing down to which cells are bad. The issue I see with only replacing bad cells, is the fact that all the cells are of the same age. If only bad cells are replaced, how long would it be before more cells go bad. I don't know how many cells are in a Mercedes. Tesla has around 3,000 cells.

Right. I don't think you can replace only bad cells. You'd have to replace them all, and grade them all so that similar are in each cell, and outliers are eliminated.

But the assembly really can't be all that bad. It has to be blocks of cells, strips of blocks, bound together.

two reasons: Still chasing a cheap(er) ginormous power brick - this is along those same lines... And I think there is a financial viability in being able to do this for others. I think you could make a buck at it, and save folks some dough...

[Elderberry]

There are shops out there that work on batteries.

Like this one:  https://electrek.co/2021/09/13/tesla-battery-pack-replacement-repair/

[IsailedawayfromFR]

You only find this out on obscure news sites as the MSM will never reveal this type of news.

[Cyber Liberty]

It's a Mercedes.
EVERYTHING costs more.

True!  It only cost me $13K to replace the one in my car, and it's a Ford.