Oh, bugger

Seconded, they vary enormously in ability. I have one made by Century that is flawless. It will start anything, including on one occasion a

6.8L diesel with a completely flat battery. I bought a second one from Aldi thinking it would be as good... hopeless. It doesn't even work when the car battery has a half charge.

The Century pack is here:

THe one I have is the ES3000, the cheapest in the range. I can't recommend it highly enough, it's a good unit not flashy but very competent.

I can't find them in the UK anymore, a useful starting point is Amazon, but AFAICS only in the USA:

Mine came from Lidl and was half the Argos price for what appeared to be an identical item and it's been fine. I wonder if there's a big tolerance on the batteries of these cheap ones - if so I've been lucky.

Mine has been fine for starting petrol engined stuff.

Ahh. Ours is a mains powered job. Never really liked the idea of what's basically a spare battery in a box...

We know, the jump /leads/ were in the boot - hence me having to borrow a set...

Mine started a neighbour's BMW 535d. Got a laff about that as I covet it like no other. ;-)

Still don't know why its battery was flat. It was approx one year old, used the previous day, and has a water cooled 150 amp alternator...

They are sooooo useful. Pumps up tyres. A handy portable source of 12 volts for testing etc anything 12 volts. Much easier to connect and carry than a spare battery and has an off on switch. Of course I can understand a car dealer having a mains powered starter pack.

ah i see your post just made no sense to me does now though :)