Assessing Today’s Jump Starter Landscape

It Always Comes Down to the Fine Print

BY JIM OHARA

When we speak to tow operators who are shopping for jump starters, usually three key characteristics are the critical factors they are evaluating as they consider their next purchase. These include power, convenience, and durability/ longevity. For each individual operator, where each of these factors falls on the importance scale will vary, but these are the three areas of primary concern that dominate these conversations. So, we thought that we’d address each of these areas of concern, based on our 30 years of experience servicing this critical industry and the operators who make it happen out there on American roads every day. In addition to the areas already mentioned, we’ll also address another topic that always pops up in our conversations related to ratings, particularly when it comes to power. There’s much confusion out there and many products deploy ratings that add to the confusion. So, where relevant, we’ll try to bring some clarity to jump starter ratings, what they really mean and how those rating apply to starting capability.

Jump Starter Conversations Start and End with Power

Nowadays, there are jump starters that range in size from smaller than a deck of cards to as large as a small freezer (our FMB1224 truck mounted fleet service unit weighs over 300 lbs.). Given this wide range of sizes and capabilities, what makes sense for a tow operator? The best way to get to this answer is to look at the types of vehicles