Silverline 234578 900 Watt 12 Ah Jump Starter and Air Compressor

I bought this beacuse we often need to top up our types as we live miles out in the Country. The type inflator works well but the scale is a little odd to read as it goes upto 260 psi and my tyres need 38 psi! However checking with a seperate tyre guage it seem accurate on all 4 vehicles. As a battery jump booster it is great and it strated my neighbours BMW from a near flat battery so that seems fine. It holds its charge well as after doing 8 typres topping up and starting my neighbours car it showed a full charge still. The plastic case seems quite tough and there is a work light on the front to help you find your terminals in the dark. There is also a battery test button to make sure the charge is up. It comes with a couple of inflator adapters for bikes (I think). The inflation hose is stored in a compartment on the back as is long enough to be easy to use. I am happy with this unit but as I have only had it a week I cannot comment on it performance over time but it does come with a three year gurantee from Silverline who make it. I don't plan to use it often just to top the tyres up and help start anything that suffers if we have a cold winter again. A very useful tool at a reasonable price for what it does (our local Tesco charges 40p for air) do I think over 3 years I should easily get back what I paid for it in tyre inflation alone.

Having opted originally for the Blackspur model, but which arrived damaged, I requested a refund and purchased the Silverline.

I'll neve know how the Blackspur would have performed, but it did feel as though it was made of thin platic and flimsy, whereas the Silverline feels robust and really well made.

I bought the unit as a back-up, but within two days of purchase - it was called into action to restart a neighbour's car which had been parked up for a fortnight with a flat battery.

I keep mine in the boot of my car, and once a week I recharge it so it's always ready. So, having checked the relevant manuals and made sure I'd got the polarity right, the Silverline was clipped on - the neighbour got into their car - and sure enough it started with ease.

Well done Silverline, yet another well made and easy to use piece of equipment.

Only 3-stars despite Amazon's incredible service.

The literature informed you that this can take up to 72 hours to charge the first time it is used. So as instructed, I left it on charge for this amount of time. I expected the charging LED to extinguish when it is charged but it doesn't. After the alloted time, I tried jump-starting my car and pumping its tyres with it - it worked very well. After using it, I set it on-charge again overnight and noticed next day that its power-adapter was quite hot. Using one of those Kill-A-Watt energy meters I could see that it was drawing over 7 Watts which seemed excessive. After just 2 weeks I noticed after being left on-charge overnight that the charging-light no longer was lit and its power-adapter was stone-cold, which didn't seem right. After establishing that the thermal-fuse had blown in the power-adapter, I contacted Amazon who immediately sent me a new unit - I wasn't expecting that! The new unit I noticed had a different power-adapter and a large red label on the Jump Starter itself saying to charge for 12 hours - I think it safe to assume that I wasn't the first to report the problem and Amazon saw that the problem was corrected!

The new-type power-adapter runs far cooler than the faulty one did, but imo, it still consumes too much power when plugged into the mains outlet but not charging the Jump Starter unit - 3 Watts, whereas the faulty one consumed a massive 5 Watts unloaded! But as I said, it feels noticeably cooler when it is charging the device, so hopefully there will be no more thermal fuses blowing!

UPDATE: Although I have had this for some time now and been generally happy with its performance, having used it probably a dozen times, a 'just-happened' event has prompted me to update this review, if only as a warning to other prospective buyers.

I actually have two of these, one I keep in my 'everyday-car', the other I use once every few months to start up an old banger I hang onto for sentimental reasons. The latter's battery is perpetually flat but the Jump Starter was normally up to the job in starting the car - until today! It turned the engine over for about half a second then silence. Its compressor would not even run which was ominous. After seeing that it wasn't charging from its adapter either, I took it apart and found that the battery, though physically perfect looking, is now practically open-circuit! In fact you can short out the terminals with a piece of wire and barely elicit a spark from it! I've also tried charging it with a 'proper' battery-charger and it does not draw any current - so the battery is a write-off! So the "thermal protection" offered by this Jump Starter is of little use if the battery it comes supplied with is crap - and yes, it has a big "Made In China" on the side...

So, my advice is - DO NOT TRY JUMP-STARTING A CAR WITH THIS IF IT HAS A COMPLETELY-DEAD BATTERY!!!...