Can we talk about how battery terminal cleaners are a scam?

I was down at AutoZone in Detroit last week grabbing a new battery for my F-150, and this old timer in the parking lot told me to just use a wire brush. So I tried it on my old terminals, and it cleaned them perfect in like 2 minutes. The fancy $15 tool they try to sell you is just a gimmick, the wire brush does the same job for $3. Has anyone else figured out a cheaper alternative for something simple like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

benc5316d ago

yeah but think about it this way - the wire brush works fine for normal corrosion but what about when you got that crusty green blue buildup thats baked on there for years? I tried a wire brush on my old beater's terminals and spent 20 minutes scrubbing and still had junk in the threads. The cleaner tool has those wire bristles that get into all the nooks and crannies way faster. Plus its not like $15 is gonna break anybody if their truck starts every time. Sometimes paying a little extra saves an hour of cussing.

skyler_smith8516d ago

An hour of cussing" is my entire morning routine some days, so I get it. I once tried the wire brush method on my Grand Cherokee and ended up just snapping the brush handle in half out of frustration. Now I keep one of those cleaner tools in the glove box right next to the spare pack of smokes, because if I'm gonna cuss either way, at least it's over fast.

drew69015d ago

...and honestly at this point I'm pretty sure I could clean my battery terminals with a butter knife and a steady stream of curse words and it'd work just as good. I bought one of those fancy cleaner tools once and it immediately fell apart in my hands like a sad plastic toy. The wire brush has been sitting in my garage for two years now and it still works perfectly, cost me like $3 at a hardware store. But then again I also tried using baking soda and Coke on some terminals once and ended up with a sticky mess that attracted ants, so maybe I'm not the best person to give advice on this.