Emergency-Car-Starter

if you mean the little rechargeable glove box type then they might get you out of trouble if you have a bit of luck, I would not bother. If you actually want to start something under real conditions then buy a decent battery in the first place and carry a spare battery and jump leads in the boot, plus charge the spare battery every month or so.

forgot the link:

lueyonder.co.uk

Snake oil.

Many cars need the ignition switched on to enable the lighter socket. Of course with the ignition on there will be a power drain of some sort which will probably defeat the small amount of charge this thing will give.

Indeed.

Not to mention the 10A fuse covering the ciggy socket. Helluva "sudden power surge"...

Waste of money.

Put it towards a breakdown service subscription instead.

Chris

:-) The AA used a proper power pack to give me homestart one day after I left lights on in the garage overnight. I reckon anything smaller than battery size is useless.

The connecting wires would vapourise if you tried to start a car with that

It will depend on just how flat the battery is and how quickly the car normally starts. I've got a jumpstart pack (also a tyre compressor, so useful for that - as well as a source of 12v for other things) and it has started cars several times. But I doubt it would start a large diesel. ;-)

But for one which was to be used often, a full sized battery is obviously better.

In article , NIKOS SEMERTZIS wrote:

snipped-for-privacy@blueyonder.co.uk I suppose if it was a Li-Ion battery of more than 12v, and you left it connected for quite some time, it might just charge up the car battery enough to start it. A big might. But an instant solution like jump leads from another car - forget it.

I've got one of these briefcase-sized jumpboxes, basically a motorbike battery in a plastic case.

I've used it to turn over a 3.0 v6 without any other battery fitted. It regularly starts cars that are so flat the dash lights won't come on.

Same here - one of my first ever purchases from Lidl many years ago. They had posters saying it was half Halford's price - which it was.

And it still works - although not quite as well as new. Not bad for a cheap SLA.

I'm on my second. The first was £20 at an Ally Pally classic car show, and survived all sorts of abuse, then I sort of forgot it in the boot of a car, and it got a bit battered. The current one was dirt cheap when Wickes managed to c*ck up all the pricing on their website, and must be at least five or six years old now.

When I was studying the RAE the instructor charged a 10,000uF capacitor via a resistor using a PP3 battery. The bang when the cap' was discharged by a short circuit was actually quite loud.

They're also useful as a source of 12v - like say for testing a bulb or whatever. But mine gets most use for tyres - garages round here charge for 'free air' ;-) and many don't work anyway. Or have a queue.

The Lidl one - with compressor and charger etc, was actually cheaper than buying just the same size SLA from TLC. Wonder if some were bought just for that reason, and the battery robbed for other use.

The _instructor_ did that? :-(