Looking for recommendations for a compact (lithium?) jump starter battery thing that I can carry in the car which will start a 2 litre petrol engine with a completely flat battery (like for example lights left on for two days, then had to wait 4 hours for breakdown service in the early am, which happened to ‘someone’ I err know).

Something that STW members have used successfully in similar situations if possible. An idea of cost would be helpful.

I have a lead acid jump starter pack in the garage which I don’t want to carry around as it’s too big and heavy – looking for something that I can tuck away until needed, top up charging as necessary.

Cheers S

A decent set of jump leads and an internet search for local taxi firms.

Phone a taxi, give him  a few quid to give you a jump start with your leads.  Very little waiting required.

Yeah, I’ve tried a few of those packs and they’ve all been a bit crap. Much better with a set of leads and a friendly smile imho.

Bought one of these following a recommendation on here.

It’ll start our 2.8litre diesel motorhome with a battery so flat even the central locking won’t trigger several times without a recharge.

My son’s classic mini turns over quicker with this on it than using the standard lead acid battery 🙂

After years mucking about with jump leads and getting cars parked ‘just right’ so the batteries are close enough together it’s a revelation. Recommended.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Starter-Gasoline-Battery-multifunctional-Flashlights/dp/B01CFJO88S

Certain brands of car you cant jump start Jaguars and BMW, being 2 it does something to the ecu and screws them a huge bil to fix, a freinds cost her 800 quids

Yeah, I’ve tried a few of those packs and they’ve all been a bit crap. Much better with a set of leads and a friendly smile imho.

After my car battery died on its ass while I was camping in Devon, eight miles from the nearest main road, and the farmer whose land it was couldn’t start it with either his buggy or the car battery he used for an electric fence, the AA bloke started it straight away with one of those little power packs.

My battery was around 54% capacity…

It was nearly thirteen years old…

I’m guessing the guy’s buggy was an electric one? It may not even have been running in a 12v system. And those, and the batteries used for electric fences, aren’t designed for high load situations, more long constant low load. They will have a very low CCA rating

My silly car that usually needs jumping is a rotary engine so requires quite a bit kick to get going, so it’s probably a bit of an anomaly, but I’ve had way more success with just decent length, low resistance leads than I’ve ever had with starter packs. The Li-ion ones I tried were both just over £100, and have 2 strong chances, and that was it.

If you’re frequently in those sites of situations then yeah, a jump pack would be better, but in my experience the cheaper (as in, sub 150) Li-on ones don’t last and don’t hold their charge that well, and the traditional lead acid ones are massive and suffer the same issues.

Certain brands of car you cant jump start

I’d love to see any credible hypothesis why this should be. Electrons are no respecters of badge engineering and 13.8v is the same no matter where it comes from. It’d be really poor to have diodes in your rectifier pack that can’t cope with a fully charged battery or 14.4v jump, because a fresh battery off charge will still be over voltage. And if your ECU can’t cope with the EMF generated by sparking then it won’t cope with any battery change… one with a flat battery in parallel would surely be better as there’s more to absorb the charge.

I have an old battery with jumpers bolted on, heavy but once it’s in the car I don’t care. Perfect for me really but probably overkill for most cars.

You mentioned you have a garage pack, is it one of hte big plastic ones? If so they’re often pretty reducable, especially if they have compressors and lights and dials and that, I took the worky bits (basically a motorbike battery) out of one and it ended up pretty much the size and weight of a tub of ice cream. But it was too feeble to start my stinky diesel.

I have a little Ring lithium one, it’s fantastic, have used it quite a bit. Also has usb charger etc

I’m guessing the guy’s buggy was an electric one? It may not even have been running in a 12v system. And those, and the batteries used for electric fences, aren’t designed for high load situations, more long constant low load. They will have a very low CCA rating

No, it had a petrol engine, with a car-sized battery, but he had a spare car battery for powering electric fences as well.

Anyway, the AA man did the business with his little powerpack, which impressed me, because my car is a 1.9TDi.

I have looked at getting one of those powerpacks, but not sure which is the best to go for.

Certain brands of car you cant jump start Jaguars and BMW, being 2 it does something to the ecu and screws them a huge bil to fix, a freinds cost her 800 quids

Not true, they clearly didn’t do the jump start correctly.

I’m an AA patrol so have done plenty of jump starts…

+1 for jump leads.

Why the hell would you buy a car you can’t jump start?

Why the hell would you buy a car you can’t jump start?

Would think it’s quite hard to flatten the battery on a modern car. Last two I’ve owned the lights come on and go off with the ignition, and even the 15 year old Citroen would drop into a low power mode to protect the battery if you did something daft like leave the sidelights on for a fortnight. Which I did. It still started.

<div class=”bbp-reply-author”>submarined
<div class=”bbp-author-role”>
<div class=””>Member</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class=”bbp-reply-content”>

Yeah, I’ve tried a few of those packs and they’ve all been a bit crap. Much better with a set of leads and a friendly smile imho.

<span class=”bbp-reply-post-date”>Posted 17 hours ago</span></div>

Weird, I was lent one, can’t remember the make unfortunately but it started a 6 cyl diesel no problem at all.  I actually had leads but due to how the car was parked, we couldn’t get another car near enough to use them.

depends on the car flaperon,

I tried to help an almost new transit at the strathpuffer after event where the interior lights had been on almost perminantly all night due to doors opening/closing/being left open ….

we hooked up to jump it … and it was showing no life after even 5 minutes of fast idle on the hand throttle – and i have a big ass uprated alternator to drive my split charge and fridge on the move…..

After 5 minutes when realizing the car should be started by now…..i got out the battery charger i brought (because i fully expected one of us to do something stupid and have to jump start our selves from the generator and plugged it into the generator and the battery , thinking id rapid charge from that…….before doing so i hit test – and it showed 7v. and 2%

You might – just maybe recover that enough to get it started if you have 24 hours to wait and run a recovery cycle from the smart charger – but id never want to rely on that battery again.

We didnt have 24 hours so the gentleman got the AA to bring another battery out.

I’ve got one of the great big Ring lead acid things that I bought on expenses a year or so back – don’t ask, but if you want rain on cue, it’s handy – it does the job reliably, also powers low powered 240v stuff via a built in 13A socket etc.

I also use it to power a smart charger to boost up the battery in a lesser-used car over winter via the lighter socket. The only real issue I have is that the charger plate it comes with takes forever to charge it up, but I sidestep that by using an Optimate to charge it via the built-in lighter socket.

I know it’s basically a medium-sized lead acid car battery in a fancy case and I didn’t pay for it with my own money, but it’s kind of handy to have around and so far has been stone reliable. I tend not cart it around, but if your starting issues mostly happen at home then it’s not really an issue.

I’d happily look at the Ring lithium one on that basis of my experience with the lead acid thing, though I’ve not used one so it’s more extrapolation than empirical evidence…

Edit: maybe not…

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessories-tyres/92728/best-mini-jump-starter-packs-2018

and on that note , i recieved one of the halfords versions of that ring thing as a gift .

not worth the money in the slighest… .couldnt even turn over my mates c1 when fully the pack was fully charged before going fully depleted …. and the box said it could do up to 2.5l diesels…. i suspect its only any use for when the car is partially discharged and already is offering to turn but not quite going.

i used it for a while as a 12-240 inverter as it worked well in our little van as a power pack on weekends away but eventually the battery because even too feeble for that.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Starter-Gasoline-Battery-multifunctional-Flashlights/dp/B01CFJO88S

I have two of these and they are brilliant. One can not only turn over a 5.7l (351CI) yank tank but do it enough to suck the fuel through from the second fuel tank. Will start it seven or eight times with no issues between charges as well.