Fogstar Drift 100Ah vs second-hand Victron LiFePO4 — which would you actually go for on a tight budget?

Been sitting on this decision for three weeks now and it's doing my head in. I've got roughly £300 to spend on a house battery for my Transit van build. The Fogstar Drift 100Ah keeps appearing at that price point and the reviews seem solid, but a bloke on Facebook Marketplace is selling a used Victron 100Ah LiFePO4 Smart for £280 — says it's done two seasons in a camper and claims it's still at 97% capacity (no proof obviously).

The Fogstar is brand new with a warranty, which counts for a lot when you're spending proper money. But the Victron's built-in Bluetooth and native integration with my existing Victron SmartShunt and MPPT 100/30 is genuinely tempting — everything talks to each other natively through the VictronConnect app. Right now I'm running a frankenstein setup with a cheap 80Ah AGM and it's embarrassing.

The unknown cycle history on the Victron is what's killing me. LiFePO4 cells can hide a lot of sins and without a proper capacity test I'm essentially buying blind. I've seen threads where people have picked up "barely used" cells that turned out to have serious imbalance issues after a few charge cycles.

Has anyone actually bought second-hand LiFePO4 from the used van market and lived to tell the tale? Or is the peace of mind on a new Fogstar worth swallowing the compatibility compromise?

@Drift_Geek what's the condition and age of the second-hand Victron? That's really the crux of it for me. A used battery with unknown cycle history is a gamble regardless of the brand name on it.

I've been looking at the Drift myself for a canal boat setup — the built-in BMS and the fact it's a known quantity from new is reassuring. You know what you're getting.

Main questions I'd want answered before deciding:

• Does the second-hand Victron come with any remaining warranty?
• Has the seller got cycle count data?
• What's the actual capacity difference once you factor in degradation?

A fresh Drift at £300 vs a mystery Victron at £300 feels like different propositions entirely. What's making the Victron appealing — purely the brand reputation?

@BoatFinn is right but I'd add — check if the second-hand Victron has the BMS history you can pull via VictronConnect. If the previous owner can't show you that data, walk away.

Personally I've got a Fogstar Drift in my motorhome and it's been solid. New with warranty for ~£200 odd leaves you budget for a decent fuse and cabling too. That's not nothing.

The Victron name doesn't mean much if the cells have had a hammering. Fogstar's cells are decent quality and their UK support is actually responsive — had a query sorted same day.

If the s/h Victron is under 2 years old with provable light use, maybe. Otherwise Drift all day at that budget.

@Drift_Geek one thing nobody's mentioned yet — the Fogstar Drift comes with a proper warranty you can actually enforce as a UK consumer, which counts for something when you're living out of a van and can't afford downtime. Second-hand Victron might be technically superior hardware, but if the cells have had a hard life in someone's solar setup you've got very little recourse. That said, Fogstar's customer service has a decent reputation on here from what I've seen. Personally on £300 I'd lean Drift unless the Victron is genuinely low cycle count with provable history — and even then I'd want it noticeably cheaper to account for the uncertainty. What's the seller saying about its background?

Just went through something similar for my shepherd's hut build. Ended up going Fogstar Drift partly because integration with my Victron MPPT was seamless — the BMS plays nicely without any fussing about.

One thing I'd add that hasn't come up: what's your charging source? If you're running a B2B charger off the alternator in a Transit, the Drift handles charge profiles really well out of the box. A second-hand Victron battery with unknown cycle history could behave unpredictably under repeated high-current charging, especially if the previous owner hammered it.

@RobJones85 makes a fair point about VictronConnect history — but realistically how many private sellers are going to hand that over honestly?

At £300 I'd take the known quantity personally.

Great thread, been following this closely as I faced the same dilemma last year.

One practical point worth adding — the Fogstar Drift's low-temperature cutoff is something to genuinely consider for a van build. If you're parking up in winter and the battery gets cold overnight, you need to know it won't accept charge and damage itself. Worth confirming exactly what temps trigger that protection before you commit.

On the second-hand Victron side, @RobJones85 makes a solid point about VictronConnect history, but I'd also ask the seller specifically how many full cycles it's done. Anything over 1,500 and I'd want a significant discount reflected in that £300 budget.

Honestly at your price point, the Drift's peace of mind probably edges it — but only if you're buying direct from Fogstar rather than a reseller.

@Drift_Geek three weeks is nothing mate, I agonised for longer than that 😄

One thing I'd flag that hasn't come up yet — check what BMS the second-hand Victron actually has paired with it. The Victron battery itself is solid but they often get sold without a proper BMS, or with a mismatched third-party one that complicates communication with a Victron MPPT or inverter. You could end up spending another £80-100 sorting that out, which quietly kills your budget advantage.

The Drift at £300 is a known quantity with a matched internal BMS out of the box. For a van build where space and simplicity matter, that counts for a lot. If you were building a bigger static system I might say hunt the secondhand market harder, but for a Transit? I'd just go Drift and crack on with the build.