Keeping a top-rated battery booster is a great way to ensure peace of mind while on the road and away from home. Suppose you break down or return to your car to realise the lights were left on – if you have a dead battery without a mains power supply or a helpful fellow motorist willing to give you a jump-start, you could be in for a long walk.
By keeping a car battery booster stowed away in your boot, you can drive safely in the knowledge that an auxiliary power supply is always available, meaning you can get to wherever you need to be and the walking can be left to the hitchhikers.
Battery boosters vary depending on the amount of power needed to restart the car. Most cars with small to medium-sized engines require only a few Amps to jump back into life – but what if your car has a large engine?
The best battery boosters for large engines at a glance
Best battery booster: CTEK CS FREE Battery Booster – Buy now from Amazon UK
Editor’s choice: NOCO Boost Pro GB150 – Buy now from Amazon UK
Best value: Autogen Battery Booster – Buy now from Amazon UK
Battery boosters for large engines
To jump-start a large engine, you’ll need a booster with a little more kick. Bigger engines often require more power to turn over and so your jump starter will need to suffice the extra demand by delivering more amperage. So long as your battery booster is rated to jump-start the capacity of your car’s engine and is fully charged up, the process shouldn’t differ from jump-starting a regular-sized engine.
While regular battery boosters that pack small to medium amperage are commonplace and easy to find, boosters fit to restart larger engines can be trickier to locate. To save you some time, we’ve put together a list of our favourite jump starters for large engines for you to check out.
The best battery boosters for large engines
The best battery booster
The CS Free is tough and built to last, capable of charging in ambient temperatures as cold as -20 ˚C to +50 ˚C. If you want a single product to take care of your car’s battery, we recommend making it this one. Check out our guide to CTEK to see more.
Pros
- Multi-use battery management tool
- Easy to use and operate
- Is a great power bank as well as a battery conditioner
Cons
- Other jump starters may work quicker
| Amperage: | 13,000mAh |
| Engine capacity: | Multi |
| Dimensions: | 24.89 x 9.91 x 7.87cm |
| Weight: | 1.36 KG |
| USB Ports: | Two |
| Light: | No |
Editor’s choice
Rrp: $374.95
Rrp: $374.95
We especially like this model as it’s essentially a beefed-up power pack, capable of charging a range of different devices. Smartphone or tablet run out of juice on the go? The GB150 features USB charging ports for such an eventuality, as well as a 500-lumen LED torch with blink and strobe modes in case you need to catch someone’s attention in a hurry. While quite expensive, this NOCO model can jump-start a large engine 80 times before the need to recharge, so it’s the only power pack you’ll ever need.
If you’re taken by this NOCO product, check out our guide to NOCO to see what else it has to offer.
Pros
- Compact yet powerful
- Multi-use power pack
- Great build quality and materials
Cons
- Doesn't represent as great value as some others
| Amperage: | 3000 |
| Engine capacity: | Petrol and diesel up to 10 litres |
| Dimensions: | 42.8 x 23.4 x 10.2cm |
| Weight: | 3.4 KG |
| USB Ports: | Two |
| Light: | Yes |
Best compact battery booster for large engines
What distinguishes this model from the GB150, however, is its size. The GB150 is already a relatively compact device given its capabilities, but this example is even thinner and more compact, making it the perfect choice for car boots without a lot of room. For the safety of yourself and your battery, the clamps on this Gooloo booster are spark and reverse-polarity protected.
Pros
- Compact unit, making it very useful for storage
- Great value for money
- Caters for very big engines
Cons
- Shorter cables than its competitors
| Amperage: | 4000A |
| Engine capacity: | Petrol and diesel up to 10 litres |
| Dimensions: | 26 x 13 x 11cm |
| Weight: | 1.74 KG |
| USB Ports: | Two |
| Light: | Yes |
Great buy
Pros
- High power output
- Strong and sturdy unit
- Good value for money at under £100
Cons
- Bulky unit which may not make it as portable as others
| Amperage: | 4000A |
| Engine capacity: | Petrol and diesel up to 10 litres |
| Dimensions: | 26.1 x 16.9 x 12.8cm |
| Weight: | 1.94 KG |
| USB Ports: | One |
| Light: | Yes |
Best for medium to large engines
It may only jump-start petrol engines as big as six litres, but for many motorists driving large engines, this will still suffice, and for nearly half the price of the Autogen example. This battery jump starter also features two USB sockets to extend its utility to charging phones while compact enough to easily slip into any glove box with ease.
Are you a fan of Ring Automotive? Check out our Ring Automotive tyre inflator triple test.
Pros
- A more affordable solution than the others
- Competent power pack
- Tiny, yet still very capable of jumping large engines
Cons
- Ineffective on the really big engines
| Amperage: | 13,000mAh |
| Engine capacity: | Six-litre petrol engines/three-litre diesel |
| Dimensions: | 192 x 130 x 95cm |
| Weight: | 0.836 KG |
| USB Ports: | Two |
| Light: | Yes |
FAQs
How do I know if I need to change my battery?
If your battery is fully charged but your engine still struggles to start, your car’s electrical components are bereft of power or there’s a warning on your dashboard, it might be time for a new car battery. Your battery may have simply come to the end of its service life, or it may have leaked – either way, you should replace it as soon as possible to get back on the road.
Can a small engine jump-start a large engine safely?
So long as your jump leads have been applied correctly, a small car should have no problem jump-starting a bigger engine. We recommend leaving the jump leads on a little longer than you usually would and with the engine running to ensure enough power has been transferred over
How we choose
All of these battery boosters have been hand-selected by our team of experts who have spent hours investigating and researching battery boosters to make it easier for you to find the very best, and we’d never recommend a product we don’t believe in.
Where possible, we also test and share the latest and best products you should know about.
Seth Walton is a Staff Writer at Parkers; he comes from a family of automotive journalists and his fascination with the automotive world spawned at an early age
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