( 11 reviews )
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Posted: 09-20-2008
I plugged it all in and thought it was going to work because I heard the door ding on the dead car, but when I checked it 15 minutes later, nothing. Not even the charger seemed to be working. Then I figured out that it had blown my cigarette lighter fuse in the dead car. I also found out later that my battery was completely dead so I don't know if that had anything to do with it blowing a fuse. I'm sure I'll try it again someday. So, not fair to rate it either good or bad. All I know is it did not work for me in this situation.
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Posted: 11-18-2007
This unit does what it's made for, but I had 2 surprises. 1st, this unit "pumps" power from the "source" car into the "dead" car. I assumed that this would let the power thru from the source (which is at a higher voltage) to the dead one & slow/stop the flow of power if the voltages were equal, but it doesn't. It continues to draw on the source to feed power into the dead one (even if it makes the source drop to 12V while the dead one gets raised to 13+V). If you have this unit connected between cars without the engine running on the source car, it can drain that battery & continue to charge the dead car. That could get someone in trouble if they tried this, began troubleshooting the dead car while leaving it plugged in, then 20 minutes later find they have another nearly dead car. So just be sure to pull the plug if you're not running the source car. 2nd, when I saw this in a store it said "Rated at 5 amps" on the package label, but on the manual enclosed it said "Rated at 10 amps". I tested it & the unit actually draws close to 10, so the package label seems to be incorrect (and I emailed the manufacturer about that). Otherwise it does what I expect (and others statements like "It takes time" & "Don't expect to get 100amp charge thru this in the same way true jumper cables can" are true).
