[Closed] Car battery flat, chargers?

battery chargers all much of a muchness

In my opinion, this. Coincidentally, my battery is flat and the charger's hooked up to it on the drive at the moment. Mine is an ancient thing I bought at a car boot sale years and years ago. You clip the croc clips on and switch it on and it charges the battery. There's an analogue gauge (remember them?) on the front showing the current.

They're really very simple. It's a rectifier giving a (more or less) constant voltage.

Someone will be along in a moment to explain to you why you need the fancy features someone's no doubt managed to add to this 😉

We just bought one from Halfords the other day. RAC blokey said they are all much the same.

One of these will get you started [url= https://www.amazon.co.uk/DBPOWER-8000mAh-Portable-Emergency-Flashlight/dp/B01N9P36P6 ]Jump starter Battery[/url]

They work really well :
My 7 year old golf battery has developed a bit of a memory effect, so if I don't drive much for a couple weeks then go overseas for a couple weeks, on my return there is enough juice left to cold crank the engine.

I should really get a new battery for the car - or give the old one a shake and recondition charge ; but a pack like the above followed by a hours drive did the trick.

Was in the same boat a couple of weeks ago.
Decided on a jump starter box on sale in Halfords - the one with an internal battery. There was nowhere near enough oomph from it to start the car - <12.1V unloaded and took 20 hours to recharge, so that got returned.
Not sure if I just got a bad one with a dodgy battery or something, but it wasted 2 days of my time.

Exchanged it for the Halfords own brand plug-in trickle charger type for £40 and it did the job fine.

Our battery decided to die a couple of times in winter, but I just push started the car and then made an excuse to take the bike somewhere far away to let the battery charge off the alternator. Did that twice (a week apart) in Nov, and despite leaving the car for weeks on end since then it starts first time every time now. If a battery charger is 40 quid I'd just be buying a 60 quid new battery personally.

May be pointless buying a charger if the battery is duff or something else. Why has it gone flat? Short journeys draining it, alternator not charging??

Over the last few months the car has been used very infrequently (only put petrol in twice this year) and when it did get used it was short journeys and I also appear to have left the internal light on for at least a week. So I reckon charging it up is worth a shot. If it does run down again at least I'll be able to get enough charge in to get the car started and on to somewhere that'll replace the battery.

I've ordered one off amazon and will give it a crack over the weekend.

Thanks all

If you're near Cardiff you can have my old one.

Ctek

Battery chargers are not just generic and these are just very good and mine has restored a couple of overly flattened batteries before

Bit pricey though

I've a couple [1] of the battery conditioners that Aldi/Lidl do every now & then, and they've been great. They have lasted a lot longer than the (much more expensive) Optimate I had originally that died after a couple of years and very little use.

[1] One with croc clips, the other I fitted a lighter plug so I can charge from inside the car rather than popping the bonnet. Tho' not all cars have the lighter socket live all the time. My BMW does, wife's VW does not.

I also appear to have left the internal light on for at least a week.

Literally just taken delivery of a leisure battery from Alpha Batteries who's prices seem pretty good and free next day delivery.

Just for the record, I have Ctek charger for the various batteries we have around here.