Customer Reviews

Black & Decker BBC2CB Vehicle to Vehicle Battery Booster

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I've seen dozens of late night infomercials showing the stranded lady and 2 kids in their nice warm car with tons of snow outside just plugging a jump start device into the cigarette lighter outlet and turning over the dead vehicle which now starts like magic. It's all ficticious, and bad acting to boot.

First off, the starter motor on my honda pilot draws 240 amps. On my humvee it draws 680 amps. The fuse on ALL vehicle's cigarette lighter outlets is 10 amps and not a penny more - so there is no way you will ever run the starter through the cigarette lighter without adding a blown fuse to your list of electrical problems.

But what about letting a running car use the 10A to put enough charge into the dead car to start it. BZZT - that ain't gonna work either because the running vehicle has probably a 14VDC voltage at the lighter socket, while the dead car has lets say 8VDC for a difference of 6V! That tiny wire that they use has such a high resistance that the whole 6V difference is lost in the connecting wire leaving nothing to charge the dead car.

There are 2 ways to jump start a car..

If you do it occasionally, buy a good set of 4GA cables and keep them where you can get to them. Amazon has some good ones like Coleman Cable 08666 16-Foot Heavy-Duty Truck and Auto Battery Booster Cables with Polar Glow Clamps, 4-Gauge which are not too long and use heavy duty 4GA cable capable of actually running your starter from the other vehicle's battery+alternator together.

If you do it professionally (eg fleet vehicles or tow trucks) install an "anderson" power connector in the front bumper and hardwire it to your truck's battery - then on your set of cables remove the two clips and install the mating anderson connector so you don't even have to pop the hood to jump yourself or give someone else a boost. You can also put anderson connectors on your battery chargers/testers so you can check your battery without having to climb into the engine compartment. Nicely done this is a very convenient high current 12VDC outlet on your vehicle with alot of uses.

Basically the lighter socket should be used for running cell phone chargers (0.25A) or portable worklights (1.0A) - but anything that claims to get more than 140 watts from a lighter is stretching it and possibly going to blow your lighter fuse.

The cigarette lighter port, or power port, connects to the battery. Electrity should go straight to the battery from the donor, right?


WRONG!


American cars are wired to the battery. Plug the black end into the donor vehicle, with the engine running, and the orange end into the dead vehicle, and it's just as good of a connection as lifting your hood and using booster cables.


Foreign vehicles have an ignition bypass. None of the accessories work without the key being on. Connect two Japanese cars via the cigarette lighter ports, walk away thinking that power will magically transfer from one vehicle to the other, and nothing will happen. Leave the donor vehicle running, then turn the dead vehicle's key to the on position & turn off the A/C, heat, and radio, it should work as intended.


The real problem with this device is the end user not understanding the electronics of their vehicle.


Get a jumpstarter instead. Most car batteries come with 600 to 800 Cold Cranking Amps. Get a jumpstarter with at least 500 amps. Don't be the idiot with a jumpstarter that isn't strong enough to actually start your car. I like Jump-N-Carry - 1700 Peak Amp 12 Volt Jump Starter (660) & Solar (KK JNC660) Jump-N-Carry 12 Volt Jump Starter - 1700 Peak Amps.

i tried this thing during a really cold day. i have two car, one of them is parked in side of the driveway so my jumper was not long enough. At first i was happy that this device was long enough and was easy to use; just plug the black outlet to the working vehicle and orange outlet to the nonworking vehicle. after i waited about 30 min in side my house. i went outside and tried starting my other car, it did nothing. the battery was still weak and could not start the car. do not buy this junk. pay a little more and something else that works.

I have a german car which has the battery in the power trunk. There is no way to access the trunk when the battery dies. So this cable with the only option, short of calling the dealership to come to my house. This cable worked fine for me. The only glitch is that it took approximately 40 minutes to charge the battery instead of 20 minutes.

i knew i should of bought jumper cables. the only good thing about this product is the long cord. i tried jumping my vehicle with this and it sucks. it takes 20 minutes to charge. the set up is easy. i tried charging with the temp outside in the 40's. it had enough charge to make my dome light on the inside come on. i cranked on the ignition and nothing at all. opened the car door afterwards and the dome light went off. just opening the door sucked out all the power that this thing gave me. terrible product. buy jumper cables.

If I had read all the bad reviews on here, I probably would not have bought this product. However, for the price we found it for, I figured it can't hurt to have an option in case we needed it. A couple days ago we had a reason to try it out. After cleaning the vehicle in the garage, I left the radio on and door open, went into the house, and forgot I left it on. When I came back out about 2 hours ago, the batter was dead and the car wouldn't start. We pushed the vehicle (a Saturn Vue) out of the Garage and lined it up next to our other car hooked this up according to the instructions, and waited. When the lights turned green, we unhooked it and tried to start the car, and it worked.

Maybe it matters if the vehicles are new or not (we have one 2008 and a 2009) or maybe it matters what type of vehicle you have (both of ours are GM products), but it worked for us fine.

It successfully charged a dead battery on a German car from another German car (different makes). It did the job in 20 minutes as advertised. No problem.

I don't give it 5 stars because I can't find the cable length typed on the box. Also, the user manual doesn't say whether the engine of the good car should be running or not during the charging operation. In my case it was running.

The manual also says that you need to turn the ignition key on the "on" position to enable the cigarette lighter on some cars, but it doesn't say which cars need that. Mine didn't.

So you might need some trial & error to get this device working with your car. If you can afford that in a cold morning.

Spent 2 hours in an indoor garage trying to charge Nissan Sentra 2008 (non-working) from a 1996 Jeep (working). The charge lights were on, but the light never turned green, and the Sentra didn't start working.

I think this thing is getting a bad rap by those that don't understand what it really is. This thing is more of a battery charger than booster cables. With that in mind, it works great.

I have not had a need to use this yet but I bought a similar one before and it was extremely convenient for jump starting a car without having to lift the hoods and use jumper cables. I actually bought two of them for my two daughters.