Buy It And Try It: The Simple Start Car Booster

"Because you never seem to get stranded in a safe place, Black and Decker created the Simple Start," says the commercial.

You just plug it into your cigarette lighter and it's supposed to boost your battery so your car starts.

CBS13 Engineer Tim Ondracek deals with dead batteries quite often on our fleet of vehicles. In fact, we've got a dead Chrysler here in the parking lot right now. "There's a clicking sound...it's dead as a door nail," said Ondracek.

After charging up the Simple Start at home, as required for 15 hours, we're going to attempt to bring the Chrysler back to life. First you turn it on, plug it in, then hit the vehicle boost button.

But for some reason it starts beeping uncontrollably.

The directions say it's only supposed to beep once, and then a light is supposed to flash for about ten minutes until it's charged.

But the light's not flashing and the directions can't explain why. Tim uses his cell phone to call Black and Decker tech support.

"Our office is closed. We're open 8 to 5, Monday through Friday, eastern time. Evidently your car has to break down between 8 to 5, Monday through Friday eastern," said Ondracek.

Tim realizes our battery may be too dead to boost, so he gets another battery jumper the engineer types here use called the "Jump N Carry 660."

"It's got a little bigger battery. More battery, more cranking amps," said Ondracek.

Same sort of concept, but you actually clamp the cables from this device right onto the battery. And 30 seconds later we'll see if this battery really is too dead to charge.

The car starts right up so we let it run to charge up the battery. Then let it die down again to give the simple charge one more chance.

This time when we turn it on it starts flashing green like the directions state it should. It should take about ten minutes to boost our battery. We'll know it's done when the light goes steady green.

Ten minutes go by, and it's still flashing. At 15-minutes it starts beeping, and the green light is finally steady.

But the car just won't start. The Simple Start is also supposed to charge small electronics, like cell phones. So I try it on my dead cell and sure enough, it works.

"I've got enough charge on my dead cell to call AAA," said Kurtis.

It may not have jumped our Chrysler's really dead battery, but Tim still thinks it could work for you.

"It could charge a low battery, that's not completely dead…and it's better than nothing," said Ondrecek.

The Simple Start was purchased for $50. If you're interesteed in the other charger, it's the Jump N Carry made by Clore Automotive. It was found online for $100.