Lithium car battery boosters

[Johnny C]

Hi. It's that time of year again when short journeys, cold mornings (-6 today) means I've ended up with a flat battery again. Unusually it's not me forgetting to turn the sidelights off

Having a nose around online for a booster I see you can get compact lithium ones now as well as the giant lead acid ones. the cost between £75-£100 for the better looking ones that will deal with a 3.6L engine.
However I don't trust Amazon reviews any more since people get paid to post 5* reviews (or 1* for rival companies!) e.g. just saw this Suaoki 600Amp review "5* - Looks good, not used the item yet and will update rating when I do"

In case you haven't seen them they're not much bigger than a mobile phone portable charger, the only difference is they have a big set of alligator clips, you can charge them from the 12v socket and keep it in the glove box. if they work it's a massive improvement on the car battery sized things I used to have.

Has anyone tried one of these? Any recommendations?

Ignoring the obviously Chinese imports, Draper do one
https://www.drapertools.com/product/15066/Lithium-Jump-Starter-Charger-400A
but it looks as if I'd be pushing it, it does petrol engines upto 4L which means you need to keep it 100% charged all the time, I'd look for one that does 6L engines so it would work at 90% charge

Cheers

 

[scubadick]

Hi JC
Buy a new battery and forget the cables in the glove box. A battery in good or even reasonable condition shouldn't loose it's charge overnight.
A new battery with say 90 amp capacity with a CCA of 780 amp would cost about £100.00 not a lot more than your booster cables & guess would be enough for your vehicle if it is a petrol engine. But before you rush out to spend your brass, I have a faint memory that a failing starter motor can give similar symptoms to a faulty battery, but that was many years ago, perhaps starter motors have improved?
Richard

 

[Johnny C]

The starter motor is fine and the battery (Bosch) is only a couple of years old. It's just that I'm a contractor and at the moment, I only need to drive a mile to the train station and back and if I don't get out at the weekend for a few weeks it loses charge especially if it's freezing. When it does and it starts to struggle I'll take it out on the motorway for half an hour, but I got caught out yesterday, hadn't been used since Friday and with the temp at -10 or whatever it was it was too much.

It's more when (as I do regularly) I forget to turn the side lights off when I park up, and come back and it's dead. Even if I've just driven for an hour, sidelights on for 8 hours kills it. it might not be so bad now, I put some HIDs on last year and LED sidelights and I've got some LED brake bulbs to pop in which will hopefully not drain it so much. The buzzer that should go off if the lights are on doesn't work anymore even though the door switches are fine, it's one of those fixes that will probably cost an arm and a leg to fix.

I just figure if those little boxes are ok as a backup, it'll be an ideal xmas present from someone that's actually useful to me []

 

[Johnny C]

Meant to add... the interior lights haven't been working, a bit of googling about battery drain yesterday showed that if that happens, the fuse having blown, it can leave the electric window solenoid permanently charged which will drain your battery a lot faster. So I fixed that as soon as I got back to the car.

 

[scubadick]

If I were in your shoes I would..
a) Get a new battery. It should be under warranty at 2 yrs old.
b) Visit an auto electrician and get a full MOT on all things electrical.
To give a comparison, my 10 yr. old Volvo oil burner, stands outside in all weathers. In this latest cold snap it stood there four 5 days but started instantly when required. Because of health issues some of my journeys are less than 500 yds.! but with no detriment to the car starting on a cold & frosty morning. I believe that I could leave my Volvo in sub-zero temperatures for maybe 2 weeks (as I have done when off on a winter holiday) and feel confident that it would start without any problem (nothing like tempting fate!)on my return.
Hope you get it sorted
Regards
Richard

 

[AndrewCS]

I have a https://www.britpart.com/parts/miscellaneous/portable-powerpacks/da1239/ , slighter larger but with 300A / 600A capacity. Not used it on the flat six but is fine for a 2.7 V6.

 

[terry993]

Buy a good quality battery they have a 5 year warranty or there is a yussa with a lifetime guarantee

 

[wilsonny]

I've got the afterpartz tq600... from Amazon... I've recently bought my father the roypow equivalent also from Amazon. I find the tq600 device a nice safety net when we are away for nights in the 993. For a while i had a duff battery and the device would easily start the car half a dozen times without any problem. Comes in aa nice case, no bigger than a bag of sugar and loads of cables to power various electronic devices.

 

[kingroon]

I was recommended this DBPower unit https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01BF08HGC/ by a mate, and although I haven't had to use it to Jump my 993, it was pretty good at keeping the iPhones charged up over a RoadTrip Long Weekender..! [8D]

 

[simojimo]

I have one of the DB power ones above for my LR 2.4 TDi Defender which sits for approx 6 weeks at a time in a garage between starts. The first time I tried the DB power pack it was showing 100% even though it had been in the glove box for about 3 months but it failed to turn the car over, I charged the booster up overnight and the next day it did start the car but only just. I have bought one of these now https://www.amazon.co.uk/...-START800-ElectroStart®-Batteryless-Power/dp/B01BX17VRY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1514891140&sr=8-1&keywords=sealey+e%2Fstart which seems to be a much more reliable solution and will charge with only 5v left in a flat battery. It will also charge from a donor vehicle from either USB, the 12v accessory socket or clipped to the battery

 

[Johnny C]

Cheers Maurice, I know what it is, an old alarm causing the drain. I keep meaning to get it disconnected.

 

[Johnny C]

Meant to add ... The fuse had gone for the interior lights. I read somewhere possibly here that this could cause the window solenoids to remain charged even when the window was up. I replaced that and it's been a lot better since. Haven't had any -10C nights though.