Own and drive cars for long enough, and you'll end up needing one sooner or later. A battery boost or jump-start, that is. An empty battery in your car can come from far too many reasons, from a battery nearing the end of its life to somebody accidentally leaving the dome light on.
Whatever the reason for your dead battery, if your car won't start there's one solution: You need a boost. You can get one by calling a tow truck, by relying on a set of jumper cables and the kindness of strangers, or you can get a portable jump pack. Only one of those options lets you get your car started immediately and by yourself, and it's the same option that actually can give you handy portable power whenever you're away from a wall socket.
Portable jump starters, also called battery boosters, jump boxes, and probably a handful of other nicknames all work the same way. They have a small 12-volt battery with enough power to crank over your engine enough times to get it started. From there, everything else is an added bonus feature. Some of those are great, and some of them aren't necessary, but what you want is up to you.
Our pro tip: A battery booster won't give you a boost if it's dead too. So check your portable power pack at least once a month and give it a charge as needed to make sure it's there for you when you need it. Some of the better packs have a light to tell you how much charge they have remaining.
There are several features to decide on, so we also posed the question to the SubaruOutback.org community. So, without further ado, here are the best portable jump starters for Outback owners.
Noco's jump boxes were recommended by a handful of users including Johnny Rotten, digo, SpinMap, and Longhorn. In fact, the brand was the most recommended across many of our sites.
The company's GB40 is one of the most popular options, with a 1,000 amp capability that can start gas engines up to 6.0 litres and diesels up to 3.0. Thanks to the lithium-ion battery, it is extremely compact but has enough charge for up to 20 jump starts. It has convenient USB charging (and can provide 5V power to your devices via USB), and easy to see lights to tell you power remaining and to make sure you're properly connected to your car. It even has a flashlight with three power levels to let you see your work, SOS, blink, and strobe functions. All with a convenient storage case.
User pgadams recommended the smaller JNC300XL, but we like the larger 660 model. Both are a more conventional jump pack that uses a sealed lead-acid type battery. Not the more modern tech, plenty of people prefer the old reliable. Big and bulky, that might take up more room in your trunk, but it's also reassuring compared with some smaller models. Knowing that it can bounce around in your trunk a few times without worry. With 1700 amps, it can start nearly any gas or diesel engine. 46-inch cables mean that you aren't straining to find somewhere to put your jump box where it won't come in contact with moving engine parts once you've started the car. It also has a 12V power plug and an easy-read voltage gauge to let you know when it's time to charge the pack up again before use. The 12V battery is also replaceable, so the unit isn't expensive and hazardous electronic waste down the road.
User OFFM recommended Hulkman, got one in each of their cars. The 85 offers 2000 peak cranking amps, enough to get your car fired up on even the coldest days. Thanks to the lithium-ion battery inside and clever electronics, Hulkman says that their charger can go 18 months in storage without losing charge. The large display tells you exactly how much power you have, if you're charging or discharging, and if you have your car's battery connected properly so you know it's ready to go. It will also give you USB-A, USB-C, and 12V car outlet power to let you charge your portable devices or give you some juice on the road. When it comes time for charging the pack, impressive 65W power lets it top up in under two hours. A fraction of the time of other options.
The Supercap2 recommendation comes from svxcess. Why? The innovative design uses a supercapacitor instead of a battery.
The big difference with a capacitor is that it can't help you if your car's battery is fully drained down to near zero volts. Fortunately, that rarely happens. Below 11 is where you'll probably need a boost, and below 9 volts your car is effectively "dead" as far as lights and gauges and the ECU are concerned.
A supercapacitor booster pack draws the low-voltage power remaining in your battery and stores it as 12V power. It can store up to 800-amps this way and can then deliver all of that power at once back to your car when you want to start the engine.
So as long as you have some power left in the battery, a supercapacitor converts that small voltage into the voltage needed to start your engine. It's fascinating, but also complicated. So we understand if you decide to stick with old tech. But this new option can start a gas engine up to 7.0 litres in most conditions without any of the risks of a lithium battery sitting in your trunk.
User stfsubaru recommended this one and freckles1219 suggested the same brand. The jump pack uses a lithium-ion battery and is small enough to store almost anywhere. It has over-current and short-circuit protection for the battery cables to help keep you safe and make your charge easy. It also has a digital power gauge, USB power outlets, and a built-in flashlight for making connections after dark.
Lead photo by Viktollio/Shutterstock.com
What is the best Portable Jump Starter for Subaru Outback owners?
What bothers me about the various "best" lists plaguing the internet is that the vast majority of them are simply lists of paid promotions or amazon affiliate links, merely repeating marketing materials provided by the manufacturer or scraped from Amazon reviews. It's like finding a needle in a haystack to find lists where products were actually tested on a bench or specifications were verified beyond parroting manufacturer claims.
I get it that most media is about maximizing revenue while minimizing expenses (like doing real research) - it's just a sad state of affairs that low effort clickbait is mainstream.
There's a caveat about the SuperCap type jump starters - they only work if your battery is only weak but not completely dead. Not sure what the minimum voltage is but probably around 8 volts. Our cars won't start if the battery is below a certain voltage but still above 6, so there's a window of voltage where the SuperCap jump starter works best.
This isn't to say that every lithium jump starter is sufficient to start a car with a battery completely dead either.
I've had several of the lead acid JNC and they are too heavy and bulky. The lithium ones work surprisingly well. I still have a JNC I haven't gotten rid of but the lead acid battery in it is dead.
Considering how compact and light-weight these lithium jump starters are, I'd spring the extra $20.00 for a larger one just for additional headroom of the GB40. Yes I agree the GB20 should work, but the GB40 is twice as likely to work - plus you may find yourself in a situation where you need to jump start someone's V8 or diesel engine or something.
Maybe just a technicality but I too was thinking it's "too good to be true" about these lithium jumpers but I have used them in my car and they do work. I bought another Lead-Acid jump starter after lithium ones came out, but it's been many years and my lead acid one failed so that's when I switched to lithium.
There's a big difference between various Lithium battery chemistries, and in general LIPO and LIFE are different kinds of lithium battery.
LIFE is LiFePO4 is Lithium Iron Phosphate and it's safer than LIPO - Lithium Polymer. I too would not leave a LIPO battery in the car.
But understandably one needs to be cautious about using new technology - marketers will sell anything and some stuff made in China isn't what it says it is.
I'm not saying that Amazon reviews (most of which are legit) are worthless. I'm saying that top 10 lists that simply list Amazon products and scrape from reviews is something that serves no purpose except to gain affiliate points. Everyone can look at reviews themselves, and more critically one ought to sort by new because products sometimes change over time, also pay attention to one star reviews because many times the early five star reviews might be for a completely different products, and the legit more recent reviews are for the junk actual item.
I don't trust Scotty Kilmer because his schtick is to generate views. Not saying he's a shill, but he's there to provide automotive drama. Much prefer MrSubaru1387 or Project Farm or Engineering Explained or Chris Fix.
I am keeping perspective, which is why I said that it's regrettable that top 10 lists are mainly affiliate links with scraped amazon reviews. That's exactly what they are, no more, no less, in the vast majority of cases. Never said that they all were. I also recognized that it's about low effort clickbait for maximum revenue (very small revenue for clicks) with minimum effort. Nobody wants to spend 30 hours doing testing for thousands of dollars worth of devices to generate 20 cents in page clicks. I get it.
edit: sorry I may have misread your question - these lithium battery jumping things generally don't spark so connecting it directly to both battery terminals is not as much of a risk, although it may depend on your particular device.
original response:
In truth I just connect negative to negative. The reason why you're supposed to connect it away from the battery on a chassis ground is mainly to prevent putting a spark right next to the battery, where there could be hydrogen gas concentrations and an explosion.
So technically it's not best practice but many (like me) do it anyways. There is greater risk doing it that way and although battery explosions while jumping a car are rare, if it does happen, it's not a minor thing and it does happen.
If you ever hear an automotive battery explode, you will gain a newfound respect for the raw power packed into these heavy lead-acid devices under your hood.
I'm less than 5 miles away from a Costco and because of their generous return policy I would be willing to (and have) bought off-brand products from them, but generally speaking it's a gamble to buy Chinese branded stuff (even though brand names have their stuff made in China as well).
Even relatively known Chinese brands from Amazon end up not being what you think it is. NOCO is an American company.
Project Farm tests jump starters but only when new, so his results do not reflect on longevity/reliability unless it fails out of the box.
It depends on just how dead your battery is. A super cap will take the low voltage from your battery, store and boost it, and send it back as a powerful surge to start the car, but if the battery is too low, it won't work. But the beauty is that you don't need to charge it because your low battery charges it at the point of use.
A lithium jump starter is charged separately but very slowly self discharges so you may need to top it off every 6 months or so just to make sure it has enough juice to start a car.
Assuming you're able to keep it reasonably charged, I think a lithium jump starter is a better fail-safe.
Specs aside, lithium jump starters work just fine in freezing weather, as long as you have one with sufficient capacity. A smaller pack will struggle in extreme cold if your oil is viscous for example, so if you want one that will be reliable in extreme bitter cold, just get one that's significantly larger than you think you might need.
I also went with CTEK for my charger, and Subaru uses CTEK for the consumer level charger they sell. That doesn't necessarily mean that CTEK makes the "best" chargers, but they must have some kind of OEM program because CTEK is the OEM charger for Mercedes, BMW, Arctic Cat, Audi, Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Husqvarna, McLaren, and many more.
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