Looking at getting a 12V fridge for the car (passat estate) for camping holidays/weekends away.
As far as I understand they work best at keeping stuff cool rather than getting them cold. So would probably run it off mains at home to get it cold and use it as a glorified cool box for milk etc.

Any experience of brands/prices/places to buy please!

Got a Honda branded 12v coolbox and a 240/12v transformer for home charging that I’m looking to sell if you’re interested – email in profile

Halfords Fridges Link

They are complete and utter rubbish. Don’t waste your money.

They’ll flatten your car battery in a flash

Better to get a good thermo box and fill it with ice from a supermarket

Ignore this advice at your peril

However, If you want an Outwell (best cr@p one out there) you can have mine

What he said they will keep stuff cold if your engine is running but drain so much power they are no use once there. You are better off with a cool bag and freezer packs

I have a Halfords one that I use when I’m coming home from France to fill with goodies

It’s not flattened my battery yet despite several hours without the engine running
IIRC it’s capable of cooling down by 5 degrees below ambient, I usually buy a bag of ice to go in it to help

I always found mine useful for keeping stuff chilled on journeys. obviously have limitations once you’re camped (unless you have electric hook up)

DO NOT BUY ANYTHING THATS COOLING MECHANISM IS A FAN!

Capitals are really really required to convey the useless’ness of that concept.

Either buy a proper job (a few hundred minimum), or get down to wilko’s and buy a large regular cooler box then fill it half full with those blue ice pack things, you’ll have frozen milk for the first day, icey for the start of the second, and still <10c for the third.

Most of the Australian brands (ARB etc) are excellent, but you will probably want some sort of dual battery setup….

We had a Waeco one in our camper in Australia which worked great, and it could be set to either run all the time or cut off if battery voltage got too low (so the van would always still start). Seem to be a few hundred quid minimum here though, although it seemed to be built to last (well, survive years of rental camper abuse anyway) so depends on whether you think it’s worth spending more upfront for something good.

Lots of campsites I’ve been to will freeze ice packs for you if you have a regular coolbox, or we just tend to buy milk and other perishables on the day we need them.

Ran a chepo one fine, it was never going to make ice or chill hot things but…

We packed up with ice blocks in the house
Ran it when the van/car was running only
We had electrical hookup for the van (self wired plug) so got it onto mains when we were camping

On that basis worth the £30

Stopped milk going off, gave you cold drinks on the drive.

Never flattened the battery but never used it when the engine was off

I have an Outwell (fan type) cool box which I run off the van. It’s OK for a few hours each day as long as you are driving around occasionally.

ARB, National Luna and Engel work really well both as fridges and freezers, but all are expensive. Waco are the best of the relatively cheap ( £200 + ) fridges that I’ve seen.

If you are moving around at all forget the absorption units – they need to be flat and not getting jiggled around to work.

Ive got a cheap one I bought from makro years ago. Think it cost £30, and it works great for what it is. As you already assumed, they are better at keeping things cold than actually making them cold. Great for a short camping weekend anyway. Trick is to pack them out with a couple of blue freezer blocks and a few tins of beer. As with any fridge, the more you put in them, the better they work.

I invested a tenner on a 12v socket splitter with an intergrated battery voltage monitor that switched the supply off if the battery was getting low. It would run for about 8 hours off the battery during the hot part of the day before the socket would cut the power. That is plenty of time to ensure my beer was icy on saturday night and my milk and butter were still cold sunday morning.

If your trying to compare fridges, generally speaking, the larger the peltier junction, the better the cooling, the more watts it will draw.

Dont leave it to cook in the car all day either and then wonder why its not as cold as you hope’d. Just lift it out onto the shady side of the car before you ride off. Trail the lead through the door rubber or something.

Friend drained his car battery enough to have starting issues, in about 6-8 hours of use. No idea why he ran it all day.

Mine has both 12V and mains adapter, so 99% of the time, I chill it right down for 24hours or overnight from the mains, and use it unplugged during the day. Tends to ice up if you run it too much, and need to keep rotating the beers, OJ, milk and breakfast supplies, since the Peltier element is at one end. Oh and if it has a hot/cold switch and there’s little fingers that like to fiddle with things, tape the switch into the cold position, else one morning you’ll wake up to a carton of cottage cheese to put in your tea!

I have the 24litre Halfords coolbox and it works a treat. It has been run all day off the battery without draining but that is on a diesel car with higher amp/hr battery than a petrol.
I do as above and cool it down the night before using a transformer to power it and an ice pack. Once on site it’s plugged into the electric hookup.
The previous cheapy electric coolbox I had never drained the battery either

I am fully aware of the battery drain they are capable of, as I mentioned I’d plan on using it as a glorified coolbox – fill with stuff and make it as cold as possible at home, run it in the car on the way to the destination. Don’t leave it in boiling sunlight, only run it if I’m driving somewhere etc.

I realise the negative points, but surely it is better than a normal coolbox because it has the ability to be colder when you leave the house and also cool its self slightly if you’re driving anywhere? I’m not expecting a normal fridge in my car.

Do the cheap fan run versions have worse insulation than a normal coolbox? Or will they suffice for what I want?

Ours (a cheap fan one) has pretty good insulation. It’s 240v/12v so we plug it in overnight before we go, run it on 12v when driving then grab any 240v going when we can. It means we can load it up the night before rather than our previous system of leaving stuff in the kitchen fridge until the last minute, then realising it was still in the kitchen fridge when we arrive 🙂

My cheaper one performed just as well as the more expensive Halfords coolbox. Difference came in silly little thing like ability to take a 2 litre bottle easily upright, cable storage and noise levels.
The Outwell ones that Go Outdoors are doing a very good value.

I got a 12/230v one form Lidl earlier in the summer (sic) after using a 12v only one for a few years. As Craig says, check the size / height / switching / noise / cable tidying options.

We have a halfords fan version, so basically a glorified cool box and designed to do exactly what you seem to be looking for.