Watch: Car Owner Shocked to Learn Cost of a New Hybrid Battery More Than He Paid for Car

Old hybrid vehicles can come with massive bills when their batteries die, as an Arizona man recently found out. Lucas Turner was driving his 2014 Infiniti hybrid when its check engine light made its annoying appearance…

IJR SyndicatedDec 10, 20233 min read

Sponsored

suggested a range of between $1,000 and $8,000 for a battery

replacement

.

Karl Brauer, an analyst for iSeeCars, raised his eyebrows at the tale, KPHO reported.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that could find a less expensive battery from another source,” he said, adding “It’s not uncommon for these batteries to last 15-plus years and 150,000 plus miles.”

Buyers should beware, he said.

“That should be part of the pre-purchase inspection, which you should always do when you’re buying a used car, no matter what kind of car it is,” Brauer said. “If they can confirm the battery is in healthy state, that’s the first step. If it’s not in a healthy state, they should use that as a negotiation point and they should research potential replacement costs.”

Turner said his choices are “$20,000 or a pile of scrap metal in my driveway.”

Turner said that after KPHO started asking about the issue, Infiniti cut the cost in half.

Turner is not alone. Last year, as reported by the website AutoEvolution, a Florida driver was hit with an estimate of almost $30,000 for the replacement battery on a 2012 Chevrolet Volt, a hybrid that was produced as Chevy was dabbling in the electric vehicle market. Its place in Chevrolet’s lineup has now been taken by the Bolt.

Roger Dean Chevrolet in Cape Coral, which prepared the estimate, noted on Facebook that seeking a part for a discontinued vehicle is not cheap.

“This is an estimate for a 12-year-old vehicle out of warranty and for a battery that is extremely hard to get, due to the older technology of the 12-year-old vehicle,” the dealership posted “Think of it like big screen TVs. Remember when the first big screen came out, they were very expensive, and as the technology advanced the prices became better. This battery is also out of warranty of 8yr/100k miles whatever hits first.”

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.