Coleman 40qt Thermoelectric Cooler & Warmer, Keeps Contents Up to 40F Cooler or 140F Hotter, No Ice Required, Plugs into Vehicles & Trucks

Engineer here - These thermoelectric coolers work perfectly, AS LONG AS YOU KNOW A FEW IMPORTANT THINGS. Save yourself alot of money (and weight) and buy these over a compressor based unit if you're willing to follow some best practices. First - Prechill your cooler, and any food or drinks you may place in here for a few hours. Thermoelectrics are not great at removing heat quickly compared to compressor units, if you place a bunch of warm objects in here, you won't get the cooling you think you should. In order to pre-chill the unit, purchase the optional AC wall adaptor before you use it in your car. Second - This unit cools about 35-40 degrees F below AMBIENT temperature. If you place this in your trunk in the middle of the summer (where your trunk is 100+ degrees), this unit will only cool to 60F. If you bring an infrared thermometer with you, you can scope out placement for this unit and get the desired fridge (40F) or Freezer (10F) temps you're looking for. you also need to make sure the heat exchanger on the outside of the unit has some "breathing room". I've found in the summer time, that I can place it on my middle back seats, with the heat exchanger side sitting inbetween the driver and passenger front seats, and if I point my A/C vent directly at it, I can achieve temps as low as 15F inside the cooler. You can basically make small adjustments to your vents to raise or lower temps at that point (once again, having a cheap 15-20 dollar infrared thermometer makes this possible/easy). Third - Realize these units use about 3-4 more electricity than their equivalent compressor based counterparts. This means you can probably run one for about an hour or two off your car battery before it's dead, but that's it!!! If you plan on using something like this long term at home/office, or especially if you plan on using it off-grid a lot, you may be better off with a compressor based unit so you don't run out of/use too much electricity. This unit hooked up to the AC wall adaptor will pull 72 watts of power continuously, if you leave it running 24/7 at a standard rate of .12cents per kWh, it'll cost you 6 dollars a month to keep it plugged in. I only use this unit on trips where I'm in our car a lot. Alternatives - If you need something that uses less power for off-grid or long term use, and you don't mind the extra 10-15 lbs worth of weight, I recommend that you get a compressor based unit instead. They are pricey, but I did find a Massimo 50qt unit at costco for only 300 bucks (so only twice the price of this thing). Compressor based units also generally involve auto-shutoff battery saving features, and better temperature control that you don't need an infrared gun to monitor ;-). Bonus tip - Amazonbasics sells some Large rectangular ice packs that fit on the shelf mounts PERFECTLY. I purchased some of those to create a mini-freezer within this cooler. Worked great on a 12 hour long road trip. Frozen food only got up to 15F, and the refrigerated side stayed around 30-35F for the whole trip. Makes this unit quite versatile. Have fun!!

Took this out of the box and promptly went on a two week road trip. This ran fine every day, including 24 hrs a day for the first 9 days until the AC adapter quit working. (after that, when we stopped at a hotel for the night, I emptied it into the hotel mini fridge..) I wanted to see how it would chill from room temperature, I put four bottles of room temp wine into this when I first plugged it in, left it plugged in overnight, and they were chilled by morning. After that, while on the road, everything stayed cold. For those wondering about leaving it plugged in for extended periods, we left this plugged in for a little over 6 hours while at the San Diego Zoo, and the car (3 year old Dodge Grand Caravan) started up just fine. We also left it plugged in for about 7 hours while in a hotel in Reno that didn't have a fridge. Car also started fine the next day. No dimming of lights or anything, so while the caveat is obvious that your car may not have as good of a battery, several hours while the car isn't running should not be a problem. Our food stayed cold during these times, I'm sure it helped that we had everything already cold, and kept the cooler pretty full. The van got pretty warm during the Zoo visit, but the food and bottles of water were still cold when we got back. Giving this a five star review because it worked perfectly for us, but you should know that the matching Coleman 120v wall adapter quit working after about 8 days. I'm having a replacement sent, but the adapter got hot to the touch when plugged into the wall so I'm pretty sure before our next road trip I'll be investing in something a little more heavy duty... My only other complaint after living on the road with this is the lack of wheels. If you have a hotel cart (or a valet service do all the work for you) at every stop, moving it around is no big deal, but it can get heavy if you have to carry it when it's full of food...

We bought one of these a loooooonnnnnnggg time ago. Older than my college age children. Boy, did we use it a lot. On that one the cord could disconnect and it switched from heating to cooling depending on how it was plugged in. Then there was a separate cord for plugging it into a regular wall electrical outlet (the first half plugs into a car cigarette lighter). When using it we would bring it in the house, plug it in to cool it down, load it, and transfer it to the car/truck and plug into cigarette lighter. Worked like a gem. I also used it when grocery shopping as I travel pretty far for that sometimes. The electrical cord finally failed and the fan was beginning to make some sounds that it was one its last legs. This was after 20 some years! I bought this one to replace it and was surprised it didn't have the same cord setup. It came with the non-detachable cigarette lighter plug in for cool only. That's ok as we never used the warm feature. I did buy the electrical cord attachment to plug into a regular outlet. However, as others noted on here, about 2 months after purchasing and using it for a longer road trip and then just a few small trips to our cabin, the plug overheated and it simply stopped working. After searching posts here, my husband took apart the plug (cigarette lighter portion) and found a blown fuse and a spring that was not springy. He said he could fix it, but I contacted coleman right away. And....Coleman requested some purchase info and model info and quickly sent me a brand new unit. This new unit has the plug/cord like our original. It detaches from the cooler. The unit works fine and hopefully will continue to do so. Great customer service! So, this cooler is awesome but perhaps this model is old and coleman has already redesigned it. Perhaps look for a different seller and the cord/plug in I described.

Really great fridge it’s a little noisy and it drained my battery when I left it plugged in overnight. Really should have known not to do that. It’s good for a few hours just not overnight. I really like it I’ve had it plugged in almost for a month now and I only unplugged it a few time to defrost. All you have to do is put a cloth inside or paper towels to absorb the water then plug it back in.

Excelente producto

Took this with me over a three day drive one province over during a heatwave. Kept my medication, milk, and juice cool while driving. Had no issues and was easy to set up and use. Removable rack allowed me to customize the inside to my needs and the cooler retained the coolness very well when not turned on for a while. Definitely a great buy!

Muy bien 👍

NOTE: If you are buying a AC to DC adapter be sure it is 12V-10A (Coleman specification states 6A-10A). 5A current is not recommended. For those people reporting their plug gets hot, your adapter may be inadequate, hopefully that helps. Coleman Cooler... a standard for camping and traveling, makes a good seat too. Hugely extends ability to store food on long trips. Stands upright like a mini-fridge, or flat, with a reversible lid to open from the desired direction. Some personal observations: Several good usage tips in the instructions leaflet. As light as a same size hard cooler; cannot use regular ice. Noisy electric appliance fan sound, too loud to go unnoticed. Cools in 3 hours (when empty), as the instructions say, and as advertised is cooling close to 40F degrees below ambient temperature — which is great, will keep beverages icy cold (or less in warm weather); adding frozen food drops temps even further (and thaws very slowly). Uses a simple thermoelectric design, it works, but offers no temperature control or monitoring that could improve storage beyond temporary transport; may very well function as refrigeration but clearly not the intended purpose. Must be wary about draining your vehicle battery. Can take some bumps, I'm sure, but will require cleaning the fans once in a while and be protected from dust; also kept away from open water, rain, splashes. You'll like the size, familiarity, and better ability to sustain low temperature than typical thermoelectrics. Made in USA (with US & foreign components); surprisingly I had to look very closely at label fine print to be certain, as a quick search online said otherwise. This isn't cheap, expensive in Canada, yet worthwhile if it meets your needs; wish a AC inverter came with; paying a premium for name and (looks like) durable quality. I expect it to last a long time with proper care and handling; Coleman parts are available but fans & fuses are stock parts you can find elsewhere in a pinch — by the way, maintenance repairs are not usually complicated.