My thoughts on jump-starters ...

I'd have always wondered about just how effective the modern jumpstarters are, and was always a bit sceptical. There have been numerous discussions here on EO and I was encouraged to buy one for an upcoming trip when the Projecta 900A was recently on promo at AutoOne (with a bonus inverter).

On the weekend we had to help our son move house. His daily drive (Lancer) has a dodgy battery while his project car hadn't run in a year and the battery was kaput. First his Lancer had to be zapped up, then the dead-un. Had to use the jump-starter's bypass function on that to get dash-lights and disable the immobiliser. Cranked it over like a charm. While that was fast-idling and hopefully putting something into the battery, he had turned off the daily and it needed another zap to start. The Supra then headed off with me as tail-man. First application of brakes and it died. Zap again. Two more of those before we decided the battery simply wasn't accepting charge (diagnosis later confirmed), and borrowed a battery.

All up six jump-starts over about 15 minutes, four on his notoriously hard to start Supra, and the status light still said "I'm ready for more". Took about 1/2 an hour on the AC charger to regain green-light "charged" status.

To say I was impressed is an understatement. Scepticism well and truly gone. Yes they were both petrol, less than 3 litre, etc - but that's the vehicle class I aimed for.