Who makes GOOD QUALITY car battery chargers?

[ram57ta]

Years ago....more like 20 or so years ago I had an old 20 amp battery charger that was plain jane, not fancy, no lights or multiple bells and whistles...it had a 12 volt/6 volt switch...that was it. It ALWAYS charged up my batteries..didn't give me false error codes and shut off. It got "lost" in my move from Dallas to Austin. I went to Walmart and found a fancy Black N Decker electronic charger...lots of buttons, desulfate, equalize, multiple amp choices, a start feature with 75 amps (supposedly).

It worked for a while with no issues...but one day the fan inside it started whining when it was cold, then the buttons started not responding randomly, then recently when I would hook it up to charge the BRAND NEW battery on my Grand National it would give an error that said OPEN CELL, or SULFATED, or SHORTED CELL....or sometimes it wouldn't even acknowledge I had hooked up a battery. PIECE OF SHIT WALMART JUNK.
Does ANYONE sell a GOOD QUALITY battery charger/float charger anymore?

[cool cat]

I have the same Black and Decker charger, but it's at least 5 or more years old, never had an issue with it. It had no problems with the battery in my Cougar which lasted 10 years before it finally died, and that car sits for long periods of time between uses. Maybe Walmart spec'd out cheaper internals for the model you bought?

If you want an older model either hit up garage sales, estate sales or swap meets.

[The King]

Have a Craftsman that's probably 25 years old, simple and I would have to say good quality.

[Matt]

I have this one. No complaints...

http://www.walmart.com/ip/45512652?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&adid=22222222227033444562&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=84271986648&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=116575956048&veh=sem

[LS1Goat]

I too have a Black&Decker charger. Works fine. You may have just got a turd. A friend of mine has had good luck with Schumacher

[SMKR]

I have this one, works great

[EW]

Years ago....more like 20 or so years ago I had an old 20 amp battery charger that was plain jane, not fancy, no lights or multiple bells and whistles...it had a 12 volt/6 volt switch...that was it. It ALWAYS charged up my batteries..didn't give me false error codes and shut off. It got "lost" in my move from Dallas to Austin. I went to Walmart and found a fancy Black N Decker electronic charger...lots of buttons, desulfate, equalize, multiple amp choices, a start feature with 75 amps (supposedly).

It worked for a while with no issues...but one day the fan inside it started whining when it was cold, then the buttons started not responding randomly, then recently when I would hook it up to charge the BRAND NEW battery on my Grand National it would give an error that said OPEN CELL, or SULFATED, or SHORTED CELL....or sometimes it wouldn't even acknowledge I had hooked up a battery. PIECE OF SHIT WALMART JUNK.
Does ANYONE sell a GOOD QUALITY battery charger/float charger anymore?

We had three of those at the shop. Whenever a car comes into the bay we connect them so we don't kill the customer's battery. They did quite well for 5 years or so. I have replaced the fans multiple times, replaced the momentary buttons on the control panels, replaced the clamps, and replaced the plugs. One by one they died and I scoured the interweb to find a replacement with no luck. They were great. Auto on/off, higher or lower output depending upon demand, and that easy to read LED display that was always lit.

We bought some $100ish Sears chargers with LED display but they did not work very well.

I called Schumacher and told them we wanted a maintainer that automatically turned on/off as well as auto setting the output based upon demand and would work if we were just trying to keep the dome light from draining the battery while working on it or pounding an audio system during a tune or test session. They said there is nothing like that available. We do have a roll around Snap-On charger that works and produces much more power but it is not intelligent and has giant clamps that can be difficult to use on some modern cars or especially motorcycles.

[jluv]

I've had several of those box ones, and they have all crapped out on me.

I am currently using these on my vehicles.

CTEK (56-353) MULTI US 7002 12-Volt Battery Charger

I have them hard-wired in, so they stay under the hood, along with block heaters and battery warmers (it gets well below zero here).

I have been very happy with them so far. They do have cheaper models if you have stock or wimpy batteries.

[Mach1]

My battery tender stuff has been great to me, I have one that is 8yrs old.

[BP]

My battery tender stuff has been great to me, I have one that is 8yrs old.

I use the Jr version, it's 6-7 years old. It obviously won't start anything but it works fine for charging.

[The King]

I've been using the Jr. maintainer for the past 5-6 years with excellent results.

[jw33]

http://www.batterytender.com/Chargers/4-Bank-International-Charger-12V-1-25A-Each-Bank-USA-Western-Hemisphere.html

Have one of these for a few years and it works great.

[WhiteMach1]

I've read good things about battery tender on other forums.

Optima stuff is also good

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Optima-150-40008-Digital-Performance-Maintainer/dp/B00DHGPVKI/"]http://www.amazon.com/Optima-150-40008-Digital-Performance-Maintainer/dp/B00DHGPVKI/[/ame]

.

[red89notch]

http://www.uniquetruck.com/p-20567-612v-20102a-solar-pro-logix-battery-charger.aspx?affiliateID=10056&gclid=CjwKEAjwuPi3BRClk8TyyMLloxgSJAAC0XsjYm9TkDZfafe_Z-4B6GLH4L-FWQNWSo_AOld61pQuyhoCNobw_wcB

This pro logix battery charger is awesome. Really does a good job of charging any type of battery. We use these at work. The only downside is they have a 20 amp max charge so it takes time for a really dead battery and they shut themselves off after 6 hours.