I'm going to need a few replacement batteries for several MacBook pros shortly; checking various vendors I find that prices are all over the map with an incredible range from $23.- in the US to over $100.- from some places in Canada
PC-Canada.com - MA348GA-BTI Bti Lithium Polymer Notebook Battery (http://www.pc-canada.com/item/MA348GA%252DBTI.html?utm_source=wishabi&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=wishabi)

I don't think I have ever seen such a huge range in pricing for the same product - this is specifically for an A1175 battery.

I realize that there are different qualities, but I find this price range rather ridiculous.

Anyone have any suggestion/experience where to get the "best bang for the bucks"?

PS: The cheapest one after less than two minutes with google is actually only $18.84
6cells AGPtek Replacement Apple A1175 MA348 MA348*/A (http://www.skipify.org/products/33307/)

Hmmm... you as a long time 2005 member with 7,187 posts I'm surprised you didn't do a quick ehmac search and you'll find that I and others have consistently mentioned two sites for good value:
intelligetbatteries.ca
and
battdept.com

I should too have done a quick search of ehmac when I was looking for 1 for my macbook tiger. But I didn't and when I searched the batt model the paid ad at the top of the page was from CAbattery|CAbatteries.com. I checked a few more sites but that 1 offered a 3 year guarantee and it was only $65 so I ordered it. I am so naive.
That was 16Nov2011 and it's been practically useless for 4 months now. At the moment if I unplug the charger, the computer crashes immed.
So I emailed them at CAbattery.com wanting a replacement. They replied telling me I had to send request to CAbatteries.com. No response. Back and forth with CAbattery.com but they never really flat out said they had nothing to do with CAbatteries.com. The responder did wish me good luck in resolving the issue however. Nice.

So here's a site to AVOID when you want a new battery: CAbattery|CAbatteries.com.
David

What was the actual URL of the source of the battery you purchased.

I get several hits when googling and each supplier is different.

Certainly NOT one of the replacement battery sites that I've ever recommended. ;)

http://www.ca-batteries.com/laptopbattery
(I haven't inserted a link before. Is that how it's supposed to look?)
David

The inserted link is good enough and worked.

But when I got to their site and then checked their 'contact us' at: Contact Us - Laptop Batteries, Canada Replacement Laptop Batteries Shop: CA-Batteries.com (http://www.ca-batteries.com/contact_us.php)
and saw:

"Contact Us
Address:
eTrade Power Company Ltd
5/F Hong Kong Trade Centre, 161 Des Voeux Road
Central, Hong Kong"

That would be enough to discourage me and not exactly a Canadian Mac battery supplier source that I would ever have used or suggested.

I sure hope that ehmac doesn't provide such a link anywhere in any supported ad.

Thanks. I'm still foolish enough to think that if someone says their product is guaranteed for 3 years, they actually mean it.
And I definitely didn't get the link thru ehmac. Managed that one on my own.
I'll go to the sites you mentioned earlier. David

Good luck with your "support" for your battery, but did you ever do Apple's recommended battery recycle advice? Or maybe you just got a goofy battery.

Most reputable suppliers will stand behind the products they sell, but sometimes it's wise to follow one of John Ruskin quotes:

"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.”

Going by recommendations here works - to a point. I bought a battery through a source listed here. I had a question about the advertised capacity of the battery so I emailed the company at the email address listed on their site. That was on Oct. 2. I'm still waiting for a reply. I also phoned their listed phone number on Oct, 9. The phone was never answered and there was no option to leave a message. So, while recommendations here may work out well, experiences with a company may vary widely.

Do you mean the charge it fully, leave it charged for a period, discharge fully,... business? It won't stay operating long enough to discharge. It can be fully charged, I can disconnect the charger and the computer will crash in less than 2 minutes. Plug the charger back in restart, and the state of charge indicator says 99%. So I don't know....
I am definitely not one of those people who go by price alone. What convinced me was the 3 year guarantee.
I am also not one of those people who goes by "You get what you pay for." What that leaves you prey to is companies who charge more for items that are identical in all respects but price. If it costs more it has to be better , right?
Another factor is that I thought that the Apple price was $350. In fact it's only $150 or less so I would have gone for Apple if I'd done up-to-date research.
And like voyager says, "experiences vary widely".
The thing with CA-battery (or batteries) is that the one replies and the other says nothing. It seems like a runaround.
And which site did you try Voyager?

And which site did you try Voyager?

Laptop Batteries, Notebook Batteries, Camcorder and Digital Camera Batteries (http://www.intelligentbatteries.com/)

In fairness, my battery does work. It does hold a charge and I can get about 2 1/2 hours out of it. What concerns me is that the battery is rated for 5400mAh (58 Wh) but it won't generally charge to more than 4981 mAh, thought once, for a short time, it did hit 5286 mAh. Maybe this is normal but I would expect that a new battery rated at 5400mAh would charge to within a couple of percentages of that within 5 full cycles. And I would certainly expect a company to reply to an email within a reasonable amount of time.