Compact, powerful and convenient, the Sealey Roadstart jump starter makes a lot of sense for many old car owners
If you own any old cars, particularly a fleet of several, coming out to a flat battery won’t be an unfamiliar scenario. Of course, you can use jump cables, but that relies on another working car and preferably, another person to run it. You could trickle charge the battery, but if you need the car now, that’s no help – jump packs are nothing new, but until recently they’ve been massive suitcase-sized boxes that take up half the boot in a classic Mini.
Not so the Sealey RoadStart jump pack, which measures in at just 14 x 8.5 x 2.7cm and weighs just 360g. That’s about the size and weight of two smartphones, making it easily-stored in a glovebox or emergency bag.
A 7,200mAh lithium-ion battery is the heart of this box of tricks – charging from flat in around two hours, it claims to be able to jump-start petrol engines up to 4.0-litres and diesel lumps up to 2.5-litres. The battery leads plug in separately, meaning this is also a mobile power bank – complete with 2.1A USB port – that can charge phones and so forth, while also boasting a remarkably bright LED to act as a torch, meaning this really is the complete package if you’re experiencing electrical issues at night.
Testing
As for its jumping abilities, we gave it quite a challenge: the hefty 680A battery powering Joe’s 2.0-litre Mercedes W123, which was stone-dead (the interior light even refusing to illuminate), known to be failing and refusing to hold a charge. We plugged the leads into the RoadStart, connected them to the battery terminals and confirmed a good connection with the flashing red and green light: to our surprise, the Merc only required a single crank and fired into life.
Indeed, we took the Sealey RoadStart on an errands run that saw the battery die every time we switched off, and four times, the RoadStart revived the W123 within a single crank. If your battery is even flatter than ours, the ‘force start’ button on the cable plug gives it an extra boost, too.
It’s worth noting that you shouldn’t use this on cars that don’t like being jump-started (P1 platform Volvos spring to mind) and you should charge those batteries rather than jump them.
A sizeable, extremely flat and failing battery on Joe’s Mercedes was no problem for the RoadStart
Sealey RoadStart jump starter: our verdict
The fact the RoadStart has a rubberised casing and sports a useful IP66 waterproof rating that prevents dust ingress and protects it against high-powered jets of water (or more likely, rain when your car won’t start…) is the icing on the cake.
Shop around and you can find this little box of tricks for sub-£70, and we can’t see any reason not to own one. You’ll need something more powerful for larger engines, but there’s more than enough oomph here for most.
Sealey RoadStart 12V Lithium-ion Jump Starter Power Pack 600A specifications
RRP
£89.94Manufacturer
SealeyAuxillary output
USB (x1) – 5V/2.1ACable and clamp length
385mmCapacity
7.2Ah @ 3.7V or 1.8Ah @ 14.8VEOBD cable
N/AMaximum current
600A peak, 300A crankingMaximum starting capacity
4L petrol/2.5L dieselNet weight
0.36kgSize
85 x 27 x 140mmVoltage
12V
