FAQs

What are your opening hours?

We are open Monday - Friday from 08:30 - 17:00.
We will be closed for all UK Public holidays i.e. Bank Holidays, etc, etc. 
(Working days prior to UK Bank Holidays we close at 11:00am)

Do your prices include or exclude VAT?

All the website prices are shown exclusive of VAT, as the majority of our customers are business customers we find this the most convenient format for our pricing.

EU shipping

Our EU  shipments are sent DDU, (Delivery Duties Unpaid) What will happen is that when the parcel reaches the destination country, customs will reach out to the recipient to collect any applicable charges. When the recipient has paid these charges, the parcel will be released by customs and delivered to the recipient.

You have a number of options for one item, how do I order the item I require?

Please use the RED drop down menu, located just above the blue "ADD TO CART" box, to choose your required value.
This is a RED box with white text, with a small downward facing arrow on the right hand side, simply click on the arrow and all the various item options are revealed.

 

When will my item be dispatched?

We ship 99% of our orders same day (Mon-Fri only), providing the order is received before:-
2 pm (14:00 GMT) 
12:00 noon (12:00 GMT) for Guaranteed Next Working* Day Deliveries  (* Working days are Mon-Fri )

When will my item be delivered?

Tracking information is supplied to each customer , (who leave a email address and a mobile telephone number) directly from the carriers , this ensures live tracking is available. 

Can I pay by Bank Transfer?

Yes of course, please send us an email to advise of a transfer payment.
PLEASE NOTE transfers can take upto 3 working days to appear in our account.

our bank account details are :-

UK customers

Sort code:-162325
Account Number:- 10312757
Account name:-ALTEC

International customers

Royal Bank of Scotland
7 Market Street
Leigh
Lancashire
WN7 1EE

IBAN SWIFT  GB15 RBOS162325 11122676
BIC RBOSGB2L
Account name:-ALTEC

Do you offer "Trade" prices?

Yes but we prefer to call these prices "Bulk" or "Quantity discounts", we offer bulk or quantity discounts on all our products, thereby ensuring that any enquiries for large value orders or large quantities of items of our products receive the most competitive pricing.
Please contact us for further details.

GDPR data protection

For your peace of mind we do not have access to any card payment details when you use the checkout on our website. If you chose to ring us to place an order and then pay over the telephone, your card details are then entered directly into our payment processing agents highly secure virtual terminal and no copy of the information is kept.  Regarding personal data, email address, telephone numbers etc, of course as you would expect we require certain information from you to process your order. Should you wish us to remove this information once your order has been delivered please contact us and we will remove it immediately. We do not under any circumstances share customer information with third parties.

What is your minimum order value?

Simple answer, we don't have a minimum or a maximum! We have customers who spend £1.99 and customers who spend £10,000, we are happy to accept orders at all levels. If you are buying a low value single item, you may wish to know that your shipping cost may exceed the goods cost, Our basic UK mainland shipping charge  for orders up to 2kg in weight is £4.99, ( irrespective of the value of the order, be it £1 or £100) Orders over 2Kg in weight cost £7.95 (UK Mainland only.)   We export worldwide, shipping costs available upon request.  We use tracked and insured carriers for all our deliveries such as FEDEX,DPD, UPS & APC definitely not Royal Mail unless we have no other option!

Do you accept orders from schools, colleges, local government, police, etc?

Yes we do, for many years now we have been supplying such organisations. Just simply email an official purchase order through and we will do the rest. Please ensure your order contains contact information.

Do you provide technical assistance?

Yes, we believe that our technical support is possibly the most important reason for the continued growth of Altec Automotive. Not only do we have an enormous range of stock and hold that stock in depth but we can offer technical support to our customers when it comes to choosing and installing these products. Our technical support is backed up with over 45 years (& counting) of experience of design, development and installation experience.

Do you ship abroad & can you offer VAT exclusion?

Yes & yes, we ship worldwide daily, we will also supply to VAT registered business's within the EU at zero% VAT. (please supply a copy of  your VAT registration certificate when ordering). 
Customers in other countries outside the EU i.e. USA, Australia, etc, can obtain goods exclusive of VAT by simply selecting their country from the drop down boxes in the "billing" & "delivery" fields when ordering. 
Should you experience any difficulty please contact us.

What happens if my product fails?

We believe in strong customer service. Our philosophy is very straight forward:- "If our customers have a problem related to our service or products, we have a problem we need to act on".  
Please contact us and we will do our utmost to put things right for you.

Do you offer an installation service?

Unfortunately due to the growth of the business, we are no longer able to offer an installation service to private individuals, we do however welcome enquiries from fleet operators, Governmental Dept's etc.
We do however offer a full design service & also a bespoke cable assembly service.

Can I collect my item?

We are currently unable to offer a collection service but this is something we are working on for the future.

Can I return my purchase?

To comply with current trading laws we are obliged to offer this service, however please note that items such as cable, sleevings, etc  which have been cut to length are not returnable.

Anderson connectors:- Why can I not find a female Anderson connector on your website?

Andersons are neither male or female, they are genderless.
To buy a mating pair, simply buy any two connectors of the same colour & amperage i.e. 2 x Red SB-50's will connect together. Simply rotate one of the two housings 1800 in relation to the mating connector and they will connect together.
For example , 2 x SB-50's one yellow and one red will not connect together. You can also mix contact sizes, again for example, 2 x Yellow SB-175's one with 25mm2 contacts and the other with 50mm2 contacts will connect together. This is useful when joining different cable sizes together.
The above also applies to the PowerPole range of single connectors, i.e they are genderless, only thesame colours will connect together, different size contacts can be used in mating halves.

Regarding cable sizes , what exactly is "mm2" & "AWG" ?

These are industry standard ways of identifying cable sizes.
The European ISO system"mm2" or more correctly "mm2 " means "millimetre squared" & AWG (American Wire Gauge)  both of these refer to the "cross sectional area" of the cable. This is the conductor part of the cable only, it does not include the insulation jacket. The unusual aspect of the AWG system, is that as the number increases the cable becomes smaller. Whereas with the ISO "mm2" as the number increases so does the cable size.

If you wish to read further about "AWG" please use this link (and the very best of luck to you) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge

Calculating the cross sectional area of a cable using the ISO mm2 method

A 10mm2 cable is not 10mm in diameter, it is in fact approx. 5.60mm (the diameter varies slightly due to the type of insulation surrounding the inner conductor core.) The "mm2" is calculated  by using Pi R2 ,  take for example a 10mm2 cable which has an inner conductor made up of 80 strands of 0.40mm wire. The cross-sectional area of one strand is calculated by halving the diameter of the single strand to obtain its radius, so we get 0.40 divided by 2 = 0.20. 
Square  the radius :- 0.20 x 0.20 = 0.04
Multiply by Pi:-  3.142 x 0.04 =0.12568
Now multiply this figure by the number of strands in the entire cable :- 80 x 0.1258 =10.05
Hence you have a 10mm2 cable.

Choosing the correct eyelet fitting:-

Most eyelets (all our ALTEC eyelets are clearly marked) are stamped , e.g. 25-8, this means that eyelet will accept a 25mm2 cable and has an 8mm stud mounting hole, a further example :- 70-12, this means the eyelet will accept a 70mm2 cable and has a 12mm stud mounting hole.

Need to know the mm2 of a conductor to fit an existing eyelet?

The chart below shows the approximate conductor diameters of the various popular cable sizes in relationship to "mm2" & "AWG"

mm2	AWG	Approx diameter (mm)
6	10	4.00
10	8	4.50
16	6	5.50
25	4	6.70
35 or 40	2	8.60
50	0 or 1/0	9.60
60 or 70	00 or 2/0	12.00
95	no direct equivalent but use 3/0	13.50
120	no direct equivalent but use 4/0	15.00
150	300mcm	16.50
185	350mcm	18.50
240	500mcm	21.00
E&O.E.

So if you have an eyelet with a cable entry hole of 6.7mm, you should be using 25mm2  (25mm squared cable).