17 August 2006

Portable jump starters

My recent hassle with a dead battery made me realize that jumper cables aren't very useful without someone else around to give me a jump. I could have salvaged at least some of my day if I had a portable jump starter. This item certainly deserves further research.

3 comments:

Stargazer (original profile) said...

The battery charger that I have also has a function of jump starting the car, but it has to be plugged into an outlet.

The problem with carrying around a portable charger is that if you're driving around where you may be at risk of using it, you should probably be buying a new battery anyway.

Did you notice any symptoms from the old battery before it died?

r32argent said...

I didn't notice any symptoms. Pepboys told me it had a dead fuel cell. The battery wouldn't hold a charge. A jump could start the car, but even after leaving the engine running before turning it off again I still needed a jump to restart.

I've seen portable jump cables that run on a battery. I wasn't thinking of carrying it in the back all the time, but just for situations like this--so I wouldn't have to waste time waiting for someone able to give me a jump. One annoying thing, though, would be having to make sure the portable jump cables were always charged.

r32argent said...

Another thought: with a portable jump cable, I wonder if it would have been okay for me to go to work? I could have jumped myself after work to go home, and dealt with finding a new battery the next day or on the weekend.