Recommended battery booster/charger

[saxon]

Well, having several cars in the household including Griff, Land Rover Disco etc we do seem to get caught out with flat battery problems as again this morning.

Ideally I need a battery booster unit capable of starting a totally flat TVR or Landie (My old Halfords Powerpack100 would never start a car if the battery voltage was less than 2.5 volts due to some protection circuit or something so bloody useless if totally flat)
Ideally the unit would have the facility to charge a flat battery off mains power too

Any recommendations - would this do the job: http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/...

Appreciate any advice.

Saxon

[Macey]

Hi,

I know that the AA use Battery packs rated at 700amps and the guy did state that the smaller less powerful ones are not worth the money if you are trying to start anything over 2000cc.

Steve

[RichB]

Your better off getting a couple of Accumate battery conditioners off eBay and plugging them into the cigarette lighter.

[darreni]

As Rich says, get an optimate/accumate to give a full charge to the battery.
Power pack wise, have a look at the sealey rs1, auto express were not that impressed as it lacked a torch & compressor, but i've had one for a couple of years & its never failed to start anything i've connected it to, instantly.
RRP is £230, but most sealey dealers have them for about £100.

[neilus]

I've got a StreetWise jump start battery, got from the local motor factors seems to do the job on the Cerb, but I'm thinking of getting one of these. Only problem I can see is those clips are not going to be able to connect directly to the positive terminal, which is the same problem I have on the existing one.

Neil.

[RBV8]

I had similar problem as sinfully I wasn't using the Chim as often as I should. Result was that each time I went to fire her up the baterry was dead

Now since the last jump start and quick drive out I bought a solar panel which I connect to the cigarette lighter and since then, touch wood, i've had no probs what so ever.

Was only a tenner from Maplins too!

R

[DavidLScott]

Accumate - no question. Use one on the Chim and the bike - I've even got one on my ride-on mower.

[SimonKD]

Another thumbs up for Accumate. Been using it for 4.5 years now never let me down once. Car starts first time every time even after standing for some time, suppose battery must be in good order though.

Regards
Simon

[leorest]

saxon said:

Well, having several cars in the household including Griff, Land Rover Disco etc we do seem to get caught out with flat battery problems as again this morning.

Ideally I need a battery booster unit capable of starting a totally flat TVR or Landie (My old Halfords Powerpack100 would never start a car if the battery voltage was less than 2.5 volts due to some protection circuit or something so bloody useless if totally flat)
Ideally the unit would have the facility to charge a flat battery off mains power too

Any recommendations - would this do the job: http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/...

Appreciate any advice.

Saxon

The Accumate chargers as previously recommended won't help start a car with a flat/duff battery as requested by the OP. They are very good at keeping a good battery in tip-top condition during extended periods of storage. I have a Gunsons Starter Charger. Basically it's a beefy charger that is intended to thump a load of current into a discharged and possibly iffy battery and after about ten minutes will assist the battery in providing enough umph to turn the engine over. The key is the battery takes a partial charge and the charger supplements this during cranking. This piece of kit has got me going on innumerable occasions over the years. More recently the trend has been towards chargers with inbuilt batteries to assist cranking current. Whether these are better I can't say. All I know is my Starter Charger does it for me.
One point is that if your battery has let you down in the cold weather then you need to check it out, it should be able to cope and the fact that it hasn't probably means something is amiss.
I always replace batteries at the first suspicion of problems these days and consequently for the last ten+ years my jump leads have only been used to rescue others and my Starter/Charger has only been used for charging leisure batteries and the Tiv once when I let the battery go completely flat. Finally, and this may be a bit over the top, I always fit the largest battery that will physically fit in the battery tray. This is a hangover from the days when I used to travel a lot and my car would stand for weeks/months at a time.
HTH

[Gas Man]

Sounds like you need one of these!

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/...

They do even bigger ones (bottom of that page) if your budget can stretch a bit further.

[DavidLScott]

Surely it's better to keep a battery in good condition rather than keep giving it a boost start - suerly it must be in the way out if it keeps going flat anyway.

[S6 Devil]

RBV8 said:

I had similar problem as sinfully I wasn't using the Chim as often as I should. Result was that each time I went to fire her up the baterry was dead

Now since the last jump start and quick drive out I bought a solar panel which I connect to the cigarette lighter and since then, touch wood, i've had no probs what so ever.

Was only a tenner from Maplins too!

R

Can you tell me which one you went for and where can it be mounted, ie sloped roof or vertical wall?
Cheers!