if its not a special car with a big battery or load rating etc, just any old $29.95 supercheap charger will work just fine
the only reason I spent more than $30 on my car is because my charger has a 'jump-start' feature in case you need to jump a totally dead battery

just make sure its 'intelligent' - so it knows to turn off once it's fully charged
there really is nothing to them for your average car battery

So this one should charge a normal battery, AND be able to jump it, i.e. pulse. Have I understood?

If you leave your car for long periods of time like I do, use a charger that has a trickle function and leave it plugged in all the time.

Once the battery is fully charged, the charger will change to trickle mode, which stops the battery from discharging.

BTW, from the above link, it's a 4 amp charger, that is no where near enough to jump start a car. I'm not sure how many amps you need, but I would guess in the range of 300-600 amps (look at how thick jumper cables are compared to your battery charger cables)

last edited by Furgle at 11:12:26 06/Jun/12

I have this bad boy.

Freebie from a mate. Only thing wrong with it is the timer doesn't work so never turns itself off but other than that, it's awesome.