Hi,

Basically my car is getting used 2 or 3 times a week at best and as a result is now losing charge after 3/4 days being unused. Had the AA out last week who said the battery is fine etc but due to lack of use the battery is not getting chance to recharge fully.

I am looking to get a battery booster / jump starter but am unsure as to which one would suit my needs:
- Must be portable i.e. not require a mains connection or power supply whilst delivering the charge.
- Must be rechargable via a 240V mains socket.

Any suggestions...........sensible ones, not just get a new car as that is my next course of action but need to just be able to get by for a few weeks.

Cheers

If you're car's not garaged I think you can get a solar panel trickle charger which sits on the dash board and plugs into the cigarette lighter outlet to trcle charge the battery. Try a google search.

Might get you over the problem?

You'd be much better just going out and leaving it running for 15 mins, Your alternator will give the battery more charge in 15 minutes than a portable jump start ever can.

Then they AA bloke is a fooking idiot, I bet he never did a load test on the battery. Running a battery flat is the easiest way to kill it, yes it can be re-charged to 12.7 volts but it won't last long. The more it happens, the weaker the battery becomes.

For the short term, I'd go with the previous suggestion of a solar trickle charger or failing that, disconnect the thing everytime you're going to leave it.

This.




Back to your question, you can buy just this item from Halfords at around £80 or other toolhire type places for maybe a bit less, just keep it in the car, when you want to go, plug into cigarette lighter and bruuuuummm bruuuumm.

Just keep the charger itself charged up as per manufacturer's recommendations.

I'd go for the model which has an inbuilt compressor and pressure gauge, just the job when stuck in the middle of nowhere with a slowish puncture.

Also they have a cig-lighter-out socket and those can come in very handy eg camping trips etc., you can get (probably already have) a cig-lighter charge lead/power lead for most electronic items

I've also seen what they describe as a "heavy duty" on [url=http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/7402852.htm?CMPID=GS001&_%24ja=tsid:11527%7Ccc:%7Cprd:7402852%7Ccat:garden+and+diy+%2F+car+%2F+car+equipment+and+accessories+%2F+car+tools+%2F at Argos[/url for £90 - from the pic it looks to have a standard 3 pin socket on it which could be handy! (Argos seem to stock half a dozen models). Maybe time to trade my old one in . . .

Can't recommend it as no idea of manuf. etc but you can get one for [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001C85UG8/ref=asc_df_B001C85UG87460191?smid=A3G8I6ZF6N4A8R&tag=googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22218&creativeASIN=B001C85UG8around £30 on Amazon[/url

I had a similar problem to that described by the OP, i.e. If I got a jump-lead start the car ran fine.
Even if I stopped and re-started, the battery still seemed OK.
I went through the same thought process as the OP describes and I bought a battery charger ... but I still had the same issue.

In the end, what my car actually needed was a new battery.
The garage had been testing it just after I arrived (when the charge was still high) and kept telling me that my battery was no problem ... but they were wrong, it wasn't holding the charge, I got a new battery and never had the problem again.

Without wishing to be too technical, your battery is shagged.

Yup, going through this at the moment with the wifes car, just trying to deny that the battery is shagged actually but I know its going to need a new one very soon, like now.

I bought a charger (plug into mains) for £24 from Halfords two weeks ago, the battery is ok on a full charge for about 7 days but it will go again usually after a cold night, just delaying the inevitable £80 for a new battery at the moment, if it was my car I'd change it immediately

Incidently, about fifteen years ago my business used to be located opposite a vehicle electrician who made a living from dead batteries, I bought one from him for a three year old car on which the battery had failed, I moaned a bit over how quickly it had died but he told me that most car batteries had a two year warranty and would die between years two and three.

I'm doing quite well with the wifes low-use car after six years then (its the low usage that does for them).

That'll keep the battery topped up but it's also a sure-fire way of knackering an engine, especially a diesel engine. Engines are meant to be run under load, not sat idling. Take a look at any moored boat when it's charging its batteries, the owner will keep it tied up but also put it into gear so that the engine is working under load.

This.

You're fighting a losing battle and burning pennies trying to prolong a failing battery's life, especially buying gadgets. You'll need a new battery sooner rather than later either way.

Doesn't your battery lose 25% of its life everytime it is jumped?

Baldrick should be able to sort you out!

Go buy yourself a new battery . I will only put Bosch S3 or S4 batteries on my own cars . Some of my cars don't move for weeks at a time , but they never fail to start .
Have you had a sparky check the car for anything draining the charge such as an interior light ( especially the one in the boot) , or the radio ?
A flat battery can be boost started as many times as you want without shortening it's life , but it takes around THIRTY minutes of actually driving the car to get it fully charged . Just leaving it idling will take longer , and if you are having to do it every few days it is going to cost you more in fuel than a new battery would cost .
As mentioned above it is not a good idea to leave your car sat running . It can cause allsorts of problems .
Booster packs are a great idea , but you have to pay a great deal of money for a decent one . One I use cost nearly £400 . It is big and heavy and not really suited to be carried around in the boot though .

I drive our second car to and from the train station, and have had to replace the battery a couple of times after it went flat following periods when it wasn't being used. The last time seemed weird as the battery was only a year old and I hadn't used the car for only a about week before having to call the RACQ.

The guy tested my battery and found it was being drained way too much when everything was switched off. Without going to an auto-electrician (hardly worth it for the old thing), he suggested I disconnect the battery every time I leave the car for any time. I've been doing this for a year now and the car restarted perfectly after being left for 3 weeks. I understand with more modern cars this may be a poor solution, but in my old banger its fine.

On chargers you do have to check apparently as the one I bought a few years ago basically only 'tops up' a battery - it won't recharge it once the charge is below a certain level and apparently (according to same RACQ guy) is useless for more modern batteries. Have no idea on the technicalities of this, but chargers can be expensive, so best get the right sort.

Your battery is snookered mate.

Just to add my finale - the wifes car wouldn't start again yesterday so she called out the AA, he measured the charge in the battery and it was holding 72amp instead of 300, started it with his techno-car-starter-gizmo, measured it under charge and it was up to 120amp - she went out and bought a new one.

Dunno what juice they use, but a fortnight in a secure car park near the airport would always flatten the battery of the last car I had, and the bod in the car park who started up all the cars with dead batteries (almost a full time job that, he said!) told me that it is the car alarms with their sensors that drain the battery.

Theres a user of these forums who's almost brand new Honda CRV had a flat battery when we returned to it after just four days at Stanstead Airport - mobile phone battery charger left plugged in with or without mobile phone attached is what did for it.

My first question is where had he plugged it?
Most cars no longer come with a cig lighter they actually have a chargeing point instead and all the cars I have seen with them are dead if the ingition is off

That's how my front one works, the one in the rear seats and the one in the boot both require the engine to be running, as does my mobile hands-free kit

There's another user of these forums whose Land Rover Discovery had a flat battery when he returned to it after just five days at Leeds Bradford airport - inside courtesy light left on after he'd been faffing about before dashing for his plane.

Indeed so I have no idea how someone can have flattened their battery by leaving their phone charger in a charging point when that charging point is effectively 'dead' when the key is out.

Its what the AA man said (where's the shrugs shoulders icon when you need it).


I was just bloody annoyed that the AA got there within a few minutes as I'd gone back into the airport and just settled down with a coffee and a large danish pastry.

Yet another AA man I have to ask if they get their qualifications out of christmas crackers.

I'll try and get his phone number for you, it started with 0800...