Sealey Electrostart 800 – Product Review
October 8, 2022
You’re taking the classic out. You’re excited. It’s going to be a good day. The open road, your classic, the sweet sounds of internal combustion filling your ears. Bliss. You slide into the driver’s seat, you put the key in the ignition, you turn it and… nothing. The battery is flat. You scream internally. There is no worse feeling than that of being scuppered by a lack of volts. Sure, if you keep your car in the garage, you can leave it on a trickle charger. But not all of us have that luxury. And sure, you could jump it off another car, but that’s a faff. A little lithium jump pack? Great, until you remember it needs charging, so that’ll take two hours. If only there was a better solution. Something like, say, the Sealey Electrostart 800.
Get your Sealey Electrostart 800 here
The Product
This is really, really clever. The common jump packs you see today are nifty, what with their lithium batteries and what not. However, jumping a car means a very sudden jolt of power is needed, and lithium batteries don’t like this. They’re build for longevity, not sudden, high power outbursts. As such, they quickly degrade and before you know it, your jump pack is useless. This Electrostart 800 is different. It doesn’t use batteries. I know, your head just popped. How does it jump a car if it has no batteries? Capacitors, that’s how. It has a bank of them internally, and capacitors are by design meant for short, sudden bursts of electricity. Perfect. But that’s not all.
To charge the Electrostart 800, you can use your flat battery. Madness, right? Just because a car battery can’t start the car, it doesn’t mean it’s dead. There are still volts in there, just not enough of them to crank your engine. Connect the Electrostart 800, turn it on, and if you have between approx. 5 and 9 volts in there, it will quickly charge up. Nifty. Then it’ll keenly shoot the power back into your car, and away you go. In theory. But we don’t do theory here at Car & Classic. We test.
The Test
I’m a busy chap, what with everything I need to do here at Car & Classic. As such, my cars do sometimes end up a little… forgotten. I’m sure that’s obvious via the three inches of dirt atop my Rover 800. It also had a dead battery. Perfect then. Normally, the Electrostart 800 would pull volts from the tired battery and shoot them back in. That wasn’t to be though, as the battery had a mere 4.6 volts rattling around within. Not enough to charge the device. Snookered then, right? Well, no. You can also charge it up via a micro USB or 12V socket (on another car) so I did that. Just plug it in, press the ‘on/off’ button and away you go. It charges in about 2 mins, if that. When it has enough kick, a symbol with a car and key appears, telling you it’s good to go. I didn’t think, however, it would bring the Rover back around. It was completely dead.
The Result
I connected it to the hefty battery of the 800, it did some happy beeps (I assume they were happy?) and then went to start the car. Now, remember, it was dead. As in turn the ignition on and nothing. Not a thing. It started the second I touched the button (I’ve fitted a push-button start). No hesitance, no slow cranking, just… boom. Running engine. Remarkable. So it took two mins to charge off my C Max’s 12v socket, and then it fired up the Vitesse without issue. That’s impressive, it was a lightning fast start. I’ve never known a jump work this well. But what, you might be wondering, if you have a diesel? Same thing presumably, as Sealey has thought about it and added a ‘glow’ button, so it knows if it needs to warm up your plugs. Super.
The Verdict – Four out of Five
I’s gladly give it top marks were it not for one thing – the price. It’s about £150 (at the moment). And I know that might be a bit much for some, especially if infrequently used. But, if you do buy it, you will be so very glad. This is an exceptionally well-made bit of kit, it does exactly what you want and it strikes me as being a far more reliable proposition than a lithium jump pack. Available in a range of sizes, it can crank almost any engine. And given how keenly it fired up my dead car, I can well believe it. Great bit of kit.
