Just to update on my personal situation (completely flat car due to lockdown) I bought a NOCO and it worked brilliantly; although I did need to use the manual override as the battery was that flat...
I'm adding my 2 cents for those searching the forum for charger reviews.
After reading lots of CTEK stories of the things stopping working after a couple of years, I've bit the bullet with a Bosch C7 charger. Arrives Tuesday.
We have two cars - a 2017 3008SUV 1.6 diesel and a 1.2 matiz. The 3008 has a 75Ah AGM that is undersized for the car IMOHO, and the matiz has a 35Ah lead acid. I have a seemingly dependable standard halfrauds charger for lead acid after the Ring charger died after a couple of years abuse charging a 100Ah battery for astronomy.
The 3008 stalled yesterday after 2 weeks of quarantine and almost failed to start the car with a slow turn over. It doesn't get much mileage, so the battery condition is not good but with the mrs returning (another 2 weeks quarantine) and other talks of lockdown etc it's not time to replace the battery but merely keep it going for now.
So for me a charger needs a couple of features that the C7 seems to provide:
* waterproof - the charger will sit outside and has detachable eyelets and clamps.
* In-car power support with the battery connected - this allows a battery to be replaced without running the engine etc. In this mode it can be used to simply give the battery a little charge but it's not recommended (can boil off electrolyte). It can also be set to simply run as a power supply without a battery. This makes it useful for a number of purposes (including power supply failure on the pond equipment).
* 12V & 24V AGM and lead acid - this includes charging with automatic trickle topup for winter if left attached.
* 16V regen as a last resort
Only issue is that the charger doesn't like batteries flat below 6V which is a good indication of a dead battery.
