Benchmarking a possibly-expired test kit

I called Taylor to ask how I know if their reagents are expired, and by using the lot numbers, they were just able to tell me what it is due to expire. Fortunately, everything I have here is good for another season, except the R-0002. I called one local pool store, and they have some Taylor there, but because they don't sell the small bottles, it's more than I want to pay for a single reagent. The thing is, according to http://www.taylortechnologies.com/Ch...SP?ContentID=2 it should be taking on colour to be expired, and the stuff is still clear. So I'm not totally sure what to think.

I guess I don't see what the problem is with testing.

You can add 1ml of your LC to 10 liters of tap water (5 x 2 liter soda bottles into a 5 gallon bucket) and it will give you the concentration.

The idea is that if you do the math, adding 1 gallon of LC to 10,000 gallons of water (or 1 liter of LC to 10,000 liters) the water's FC will be increased by exactly the concentration of the LC, whether it's regular bleach, ultra or LC (5.25%==>5.25ppm of FC, 6%==>6ppm of FC, 12.5%==> 12.5ppm of FC).
Scaling down to 1 ml of LC to 10,000 ml of water (10 liters) gives the same relationship. And 10 liters is 5 Coke/Pepsi bottles.

Just remember to subtract any FC the tap water has from you calculation.

So I bought another R-0002 and tested the chlorine w/both bottles. They showed the exact same result, so I guess it was a waste of 10$. Fortunately, it was only 10$ (and in CAD). Several other stores wanted the high end of 20$ for that 2oz bottle--nearly the cost of a new kit. 'Really pays to show around!