Going camping doesn’t have to mean lukewarm beer and questionably ref
Going camping doesn’t have to mean lukewarm beer and questionably refrigerated chicken floating in a pool of melted ice at the bottom of your esky. It doesn’t have to mean repeatedly draining your esky and then heading to the servo for more ice.
12V portable fridges for your car or caravan are very reliable these days and do a great job at keeping your food and drink cool while you are out exploring Australia’s great outdoors!
In this article, I will run you through the best 12V portable camping fridge/freezers for your car to help you figure out which one makes sense for you! I’ll also take you through a checklist of the things to look out for when choosing your fridge!
To get started, let’s quickly compare a representative model from each of the brands mentioned in this article.
I’ve decided to compare the 45L model (or as close to this as possible) from each of the brands, as this is a popular capacity and almost all brands have a fridge at close to this size.
| Engel MT-V45F | Brass Monkey 50L Dual | Dometic CFX3 45 | myCOOLMAN 44L | Kings 45L Fridge | OZtrail 45L Fridge |
OUR PICK | BEST VALUE | |||||
From $1,199 at BCF | From $349 at Snowys | From $839 at TentWorld | From $915 at Snowys | Check price on eBay | Check price on eBay | |
631 (L) x 360 (W) x 508 (H) mm | 723 (L) x 360 (W) x 455 (H) mm | 694 (L) x 398 (W) x 476 (H) mm | 652 (L) x 412 (W) x 488 (H) mm | 660 (L) x 410 (W) x 430 (H) mm | 621 (L) x 485 (W) x 469 (H) mm | |
24 kg | 15.5 kg | 18.7 kg | 23.4 kg | 17.8 kg | 21 kg | |
40 L | 50 L | 46 L | 44 L | 45 L | 45 L | |
60 cans | 76 cans | 67 cans | 65 cans | 68 cans | 65 cans | |
Single | Dual | Single | Single | Single | Single | |
-18°C/+8°C | -20°C/+20°C | -22°C/+10°C | -22°C/+10°C | -18°C/+10°C | -18°C/+20°C | |
2.6 A | 5.0 A | 8.2 A | 3.8 A | — | 3.75 A | |
— | 0.25 kWh/24hr (~0.87 Ah/h) | 1.03 Ah/h | 0.80 Ah/h | 0.7 – 1.0 Ah/h | — | |
Extremely reliable | Great value, plenty of features | Bluetooth app control, USB port | 2 x 12V sockets, lots of features | Loses points for poor reliability | Handles high temps/humidity | |
3 years (+2) | 3 years | 3 years (+2) | 3 years (+2) | 2 years | 2 years | |