Buying A Battery Charger

Looking for a trickle charger or a starter charger? Trickle charger maintains the charge on a battery that it not in use, ie. seasonal batteries, like a boat or watercraft - can be quite compact. Starter chargers can trickle charge a battery or jump start your car - drawback is that they can be pretty expensive and large in size.

Real question is do you need one. Unless the car will be sitting for an extended period of time without any activity - 3 months + or driven exceptionally short distances at low speed, not really needed. If you are trying to keep the battery charged up at all times - that might also not be needed, in some cases, you can shorten the life of the battery by potentially overcharging it (depends on the charger, if the battery is loaded or not).

Under most conditions - you'll never need a battery charger. if you run into the point of the battery getting too weak to turn over the engine - then you more likely to have either a bad battery (too old) or something wrong with the charging system on the car. Doesn't mean it is a completely bad idea - if you get the right charger, you can in most modern lead-acid batteries, trickle charge it almost indefinitely. But you are likely looking at something that costs about the same or more than just getting a new battery.