Jump Start or New Battery — Which Do You Actually Need?

A jump start is usually enough when…

The battery went flat for a reason you can point at:

• Lights, a door or the boot were left open overnight.
• The car sat unused for several weeks.
• The battery is under about three years old and had been starting normally.
• After the jump, the car restarts happily the same day without help.

You probably need a new battery when…

The battery is telling you it is finished:

• It is over five years old.
• Starting has been getting slower over weeks or months.
• It has gone flat more than once recently.
• The car will not restart the next morning after a jump and a proper drive.
• A load test shows the voltage collapsing under load.

Sometimes it is neither

If a brand new battery keeps going flat, the fault is usually the charging system or a parasitic drain — something staying awake while the car is parked. We test the alternator output when we attend, so you are not buying a battery to fix an alternator problem.

What it costs

Our mobile jump start starts from £50, with late-night callouts from £100. If a battery replacement is the sensible answer, we will tell you the price for supplying and fitting one before we do anything, so you can decide with the numbers in front of you.