Jump starter on good battery for short trips?

[aust240378]

Weird question but here we go

I know that a car battery only being used for short trips will drain it overtime if it's not given a long enough run to re-coup the loss, but would using a jump starter on a good battery to start the car, when it's only being used for short trips mitigate that? effectively giving the battery a helping hand until a long trip can be done?

(I know that I can use a trickle charger, but lets assume I had to do a lot of short trips in succession)

Thanks!

[paul_c123]

No

[E-bmw]

^^^ Wot 'e said.

All you are effectively doing is fitting a bigger battery which will take longer to discharge but also longer to charge.

[Collectingbrass]

No, you'd be better off with a trickle charger to keep the battery in good condition and taking it out for a good long thrash Italian tune up every month or so. We have a number of vans and pick ups at work that don't do much more than 20 -30 miles a day at 10 miles an hour and their engines are all throwing emissions faults now.

[Caddyshack]

Just use it as normal and if you think it’s getting low put it on a good CTEK to give it a good charge every now and then or give it a good run which would help other things.

[Simon_GH]

I’d just trickle charge overnight every week.

[Pica-Pica]

Collectingbrass said:

No, you'd be better off with a trickle charger to keep the battery in good condition and taking it out for a good long thrash Italian tune up every month or so. We have a number of vans and pick ups at work that don't do much more than 20 -30 miles a day at 10 miles an hour and their engines are all throwing emissions faults now.

A perfect usage for electric vans.

[aust240378]

Thanks all, will get it on the trickle charger..

[GreenV8S]

aust240378 said:

Thanks all, will get it on the trickle charger..

No, you don't want a trickle charger. What you want is a battery maintainer ie something designed to be left connected indefinitely keep the battery healthy.

Sometimes things referred to as a trickle charger are actually battery maintainers, but not all trickle chargers are - some of them just charge the battery up slowly, and if you're lucky they stop when they think it's fully charged.