How to Choose a Car Battery Charger

Buying a car battery charger is a great purchase for your garage or shop. A car battery charger can jump start your car or easily charge a dead battery, making the difference between being stuck and arriving on time. Here's how to buy a car battery charger.

Instructions

1. 

   Figure out your needs because car battery chargers come in all shapes and sizes. Some are small, easily moveable, shelf mounted units for occasional use. Others are large units that have wheels and roll on the floor. Small car battery chargers are perfect for people that only want to charge a dead battery once and a while, or jumpstart an occasional car. Larger car battery chargers are for people who frequently tinker with cars, large shops and dealerships, or people that just want the extra power.

2. 

   Browsing online for car battery chargers is a really good way to start a comparison. The smaller car battery chargers that most people use are really easy to find cheap online, and don't cost much to ship either. Sometimes the larger ones cost a little more to ship, but the online savings are usually significant.

3. 

   Look for sales in stores during fall or spring. These are the times leading into the cold winter, and hot summer when car batteries fail the most. This is when car battery chargers go on sale in stores. Keep an eye on the Sunday paper ads from Sears and auto parts stores.

4. 

   Don't buy a generic brand. You might think that it will save you money now, but it will cost you more in aggravation when your battery is dead, it is very cold or hot, you are late for work and the car battery charger you wisely invested in isn't working. Good name brands are Schumacher, Die-Hard from Sears, Craftsman, and Snapon. It never pays to buy cheap tools. Ever.

5. 

   Read the manual before using your car battery charger. It is a very serious piece of equipment, and you can easily ruin a car battery or hurt yourself by putting it on the wrong setting. Make sure you know how to work your car battery charger.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't buy an open box item or a used car battery charger. It is the kind of tool that is better off bought new because there is no way to verify what someone has done to it, or how they may have abused or misused it causing damage that you won't know about until it's too late.

• Make sure your charger has a jump start setting. Almost all of the name brand ones do, but this is important because it gives your battery a larger boost temporarily so you can jump start your car without the need for another vehicle.

• While you are buying a car battery charger it is a great time to invest in a battery jumper pack. A battery jumper pack is a small hand carry unit that contains a battery and two jumper cable leads, and is used to jump start your car. You can charge this by plugging it into the wall at home. It is a good idea to have one of these in the trunk of your car. Then if your battery dies when you are out somewhere, you cant jump it yourself without having to ask someone for help or waiting until someone comes.