Never Get Stranded Again With a Dead Car Battery

When you drive a 25-year-old Volkswagen van, you discover that the ways in which you can break down and become stranded are nearly endless. And this is only a joking matter when you’ve become de-stranded; when you’re still out there, stuck at the trailhead many miles from pavement, a cell signal, or good espresso, it’s no fun at all.

Well, my Reasons for Stranding list just got one shorter. The Cyntur JumperPack Mini contains a small, 12,000 mAh battery loaded with 250 cranking amps. What’s that mean in the real world? That a hunk of plastic smaller than a paperback can jump-start a car up to 25 times back to back. It worked on my VW, which has been Frankenvanned with a Subuaru Legacy engine, it worked on a ginormous V8, and it worked on a 15-year-old V6.

The Cyntur arrived full, but I plugged it into the wall adapter just to top it off. Four LEDs showed 100 percent capacity — enough, besides starting dead car batteries, to fill a smartphone five times or a tablet one and a half. Given the reliability of new cars these days, you’ll probably use it to charge your phone more than your DieHard, but for a hundred bucks, it’s cheap insurance either way.

$99 • BUY

Read more from Steve Casimiro at his blog, Adventure Journal.