This bad boy arrived this morning

[GraceKellysLeftArm]

Never again will I be at the mercy of a flat battery or stood with a tiny foot-controlled air pump.

Last week I had a flat battery, car rescue wanted £40 to upgrade the policy +£? to come and give me a jump start. I live in the middle of bloody nowhere and my nearest hydraulic air is nearly 30 miles away.

£34 from eBay.

Wow. That looks impressive. Does it make dinner too

Have you tried it to see if it works yet?

Have you got a plug near to where you need to use it or an extension lead?

You wouldn't want to find it doesn't work or the lead isn't long enough in a real emergency.

Coz that would be really really annoying.

betadad - that's the beauty of it - it requires no extension lead, it's completely mobile. You charge it up and fling it in the boot. I had to borrow a friend's black & decker one last week and that does maybe 3 cold jumpstarts before needing recharging - he also uses it on the 7.5 tonne horsebox.

I haven't used it to start my car yet - I'll let you know tomorrow morning, my battery is dying and it does not like this cold. Figured this was a better buy long-term than replacing a battery in a car on its last legs.

I'm going to try the air compressor in an hour or so - will report back.

thickandthin - yes, I think it would make dinner... - it has an adaptor to a cigarette lighter plug which I think you can use on a variety of "in car" food heaters.

And it does tyres - not as fast as machines at petrol pump, but you just clip it on and hit the button. Mine were pretty flat and it took about 2 mins per tyre - usually 1000 steps on foot pump!

Oooh its rechargeable. How long will it stay charged?

I mean I don't drive myself but just vicariously interested in other people's prepping.

I'm impressed.

I've got a 4WD so tyres are pretty big, when I parked up the valve was at the top of the tyre and the cable not quite long enough, but nonetheless I balanced it on its corner against the wheel and it did the job.

Not sure how long it will stay charged... but friend's one will actually hold a charge for a couple of months! Again, not sure about in this cold weather though.

I'm intrigued how much was it? How is the battery in the cold and what kind of weather and temps are you counting as cold?

Probably not as cold as you would get but I have a feeling that the UK's dampness would compensate for that. (Forgive if I don't remember the science of it.)