Schumacher XP400 400A Jump Starter with Built-In Charger and LED Indicators

Don't get me wrong, this unit has been great for a few years. But the charging plug is held in place by plastic inside. It finally broke and wouldn't make a connection. Took it apart, un-wired and un-soldered it from the charging plug and installed another plug from an old coffee pot to take it's place. Now I'm back to charging the unit again.

I'm sure there are models that have more bells and whistles, but I don't need them. I don't even need the light that it has, but I suppose that is good to have. I work in my car and often overuse the battery and this thing has saved me a lot of inconvenience about 10 times already. I just make sure to charge it full at home after each use. It does the trick. I did get 2 jumps on one charge the one time I needed it though, so that is good to know. I have not had to try for 3 jumps on one charge yet. Its lack of features is likely an advantage in terms of size, weight and therefore portability. It has the DC input if you want to run a device on it, but generally I will just use my car battery for that and save this for a fail-safe if I overdraw the car battery and it won't start. Great buy for the money. People saying that it isn't strong enough and claiming some expertise likely haven't tried it. I'm sure there are some applications that this would not work for, but it works just fine for my midsize car.

I've owned this jump starter for a couple months, but couldn't review it because I hadn't used it. A couple days ago, I was approached by someone whose battery was dead. I let them use my Schumacher XP400 Jump Starter. I hadn't charged it in a month, but it was easy to hook up and use, and it started their car immediately. They were very happy with my purchase and so was I. This jump starter is easy to use and a very good value.

I'm a mechanic and use this box about once a day, only recently it seems that it needs to be recharged after only 1 or 2 jumps. Now I have to charge it for 24 hours every 2 days. It has started every vehicle I've hooked it up to, even a few diesel 1 tons when used along with another jump box. When the time comes I will replace this with a more powerful version with longer up time between charges. Overall I would recommend this box for light-medium usage.

The folding AC prongs start making poor contact after a few recharges. I'll probably tear into it & hard wire a power cord which is how it should of been designed in the first place. Really wanted to like this product. Now I'm waiting to see how long the battery lives in these things. So far I've had to use it just once & it worked like a champ.