The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Tech → A sponsor donated a battery/charger, does it count toward the $500?
One of the crew members works for a company that makes Lightweight batteries and chargers. He got them to donate one, the MSRP on a battery and charger is close to $500. Can we use it?
Unless the charger rides on the car, it shouldn't count against your $500 limit, but unless you can come up with an exceedingly clever way to characterize a lightweight battery as safety equipment, it probably does count against the $500 limit:
"4.5: Sponsorships: Conned some hardworking corp into giving you parts or cash? Nice work, but it still counts toward the $500 total."
For budget purposes, it would make more sense if your buddy could just buy the lightweight battery at a discount, but beware of the rule against rationalizations:
"4.1.1: Lame-Ass Rationalizations: Cars that "should be" worth $500 don't count; cars that "were worth $500" before you spent another $2000 to fix them don't count; cars you've owned for 20 years and spent more than $500 on during that time don't count; "it would have been worth $500 if it didn't already have a cage" doesn't count. Five hundred dollars means five hundred frickin' dollars."
Cheers.
Yeah I suspected that may be the case with the charger. I've always wondered about batteries. We were lucky enough that our car came with one (that worked), but I have to imagine a number of saavy $500 car sellers wouldnt want to throw a 60-70 dollar battery in with the car. Meaning that Lemons entrants would have to budget 10% or more of their entire car build budget toward a battery. Since there is no mention of bateries under safety equipment, I've always figured there was a "dont ask don't tell" policy regarding batteries.
I think that the safe way to look at it is if the equipment in question resides on the car and is not specifically listed as safety equipment, then it's subject to the $500 limitation. Except for really good theme stuff that doesn't contribute to the car going faster, which seems to have an unwritten exemption.
If the battery were a standard heavy-ass lead-acid battery then it's not really going to get looked at hard, but if you show up with a lightweight racing battery, that mother had better have good documentation of price or the judges are going to assume the worst.
If the battery were a standard heavy-ass lead-acid battery then it's not really going to get looked at hard, but if you show up with a lightweight racing battery, that mother had better have good documentation of price or the judges are going to assume the worst.
excellent point, i guess we'll run the big-ass ACDelco that came with the car. Thanks!
Our battery is mounted in the passenger seat, near where your feet would go. I certainly would feel MUCH safer with a smaller battery floating around.
Our battery dies almost every day but holds just enough to keep the car going. Fortunately it was a small one to begin with so were plenty comfortable with charging it every day.
If your battery is in the passenger compartment, just make sure that sucker is never going to get free. Even though ours is in the engine bay, we still had to secure it with aluminum tie straps to get past tech this time around.
If your battery is in the passenger compartment, just make sure that sucker is never going to get free. Even though ours is in the engine bay, we still had to secure it with aluminum tie straps to get past tech this time around.
I was sort of leading them down the "safety" path... at least how it COULD be justified.
LOL. I'd love to see the Braille Penalty that lame-ass rationalization achieves. 
After searching the auto parts stores for an inexpensive auto battery and finding none, I bought a 12V lawn and garden tractor battery for $25 from Autozone. It's been working great and it's ~1/2 the weight of the stock battery! We probably couldn't leave the lights and radio on (if we had them) for an hour then start a V8 (again, if we had one) on a cold winter day, but who cares!
The charger is a tool and doesn't count. If your car is packed with weapons-grade racing gear to begin with, a shiny new lightweight racing battery- donated by a sponsor or not- sure won't help your cause any. If you're driving a Renault Fuego Turbo, we probably won't even look at the battery. Hell, we'd probably just wave a Fuego team right through the BS inspection.
The charger is a tool and doesn't count. If your car is packed with weapons-grade racing gear to begin with, a shiny new lightweight racing battery- donated by a sponsor or not- sure won't help your cause any. If you're driving a Renault Fuego Turbo, we probably won't even look at the battery. Hell, we'd probably just wave a Fuego team right through the BS inspection.
Note to self... Buy this
The charger is a tool and doesn't count. If your car is packed with weapons-grade racing gear to begin with, a shiny new lightweight racing battery- donated by a sponsor or not- sure won't help your cause any. If you're driving a Renault Fuego Turbo, we probably won't even look at the battery. Hell, we'd probably just wave a Fuego team right through the BS inspection.
This is the SVX, its going to be all we can do to make it through the first day
scratch that, hour
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Tech → A sponsor donated a battery/charger, does it count toward the $500?