Ninety-nine dollars. That's what I paid on Saturday to never again stand in a campground holding my phone up to the pine trees, waiting for one more bar of signal so I could tell roadside assistance my battery was dead.
If you missed the Long Pine Key story: on MLK weekend I left the Pilot's cargo light on overnight, and on Sunday morning the car wouldn't start. A retired camper named Walt jumped us with his truck in about ten minutes. Without him, the wait for help was going to be about two hours. We were lucky. I'd rather not need luck.
Why a jump starter and not just cables
We've always had jumper cables in the Pilot, a cheap set in a bag under the cargo floor. They work fine if there's another running car willing to park nose to nose with yours. At a campground in January, there usually is. At a trailhead on a summer afternoon, maybe not.
A portable jump starter is a battery pack with clamps. You charge it at home, clip it to your car battery and start the car without a second vehicle. They come in a lot of sizes. The big ones can start trucks and boats and weigh about as much as a bowling ball. We only needed something to start a 3.5-liter V6, and we wanted it small enough to live in the glove box instead of rolling around the cargo area.
I compared a handful at Walmart, Home Depot and online over a week, and on February 1 I bought a NOCO Boost GB40 for $99. A few reasons:
- Size. It's a little bigger than a hardback novel and weighs about two and a half pounds. It fits in our glove box with the clamps folded in beside it.
- Enough power for our car, with room to spare, according to the box and the manual. I won't pretend I understand the amp ratings better than that.
- Built-in protections. It's designed not to spark if the clamps touch and to warn you if you connect it backward. I'd still rather connect it right.
- A USB port and a flashlight. At Long Pine Key my phone was down to 30 percent by Sunday, because a phone hunting for weak signal drains fast. Charging it off the same box matters.
The driveway practice run
Dana's dad, Rafael, spent his whole career as an auto mechanic before he retired. On Sunday he drove over from Westchester with Marisol and a box of pastelitos, and in the carport he walked me through using the jump starter on the Pilot while the battery was perfectly healthy, which is the right time to learn. Red clamp to positive, black clamp to the bare metal spot he pointed out on the engine, turn it on, wait for the light, start the car, then unclip in reverse order. Then he made me do it twice more without looking at him.
He also tested our battery with the little meter he still keeps in his trunk. It passed. Rafael said a battery that's been drained flat once is worth watching, and he wants to test it again before our summer drive. I wrote that in the trip log, because my memory for car things is exactly as good as the Long Pine Key story suggests.
Maya watched all of this from the kitchen steps and asked if she could press the button next time. I said I hope there isn't a next time. She looked disappointed.
What it doesn't do, and where it lives
It's worth being clear with myself about the limits. A jump starter gets a car with a drained battery running. It isn't a battery charger, it won't save a battery that's actually failing, and it won't help if the problem is something else entirely, like the alternator. It also only works if it's charged. The manual says to top it off every few months, so I set a phone reminder for the first Sunday of every other month, and I'll check it before every trip.
Then there's the heat. A parked car in Miami in July is an oven, and the manual lists the temperatures the unit is meant to be stored in. Our Pilot sits under the carport and out of direct sun most of the day, but I'll keep an eye on it this summer. If Rafael or anyone else who knows cars tells me the glove box is a bad home for it, it'll ride in a bag under the seat instead.
For now it's in the glove box, next to the green spiral notebook we use as the trip log and the Pilot's manual. The cargo light switch also has a small piece of orange tape on it now. Maya did that without asking anyone. She's right.
