Wagan EL6225 12V Personal Thermoelectric Cooler/Warmer, 24 Liter Capacity, Portable Electric Car Cooler Warmer with 12/24V DC, 12V Small Fridge for Car, RV, and Camping Use, UL Listed

We travel frequently and like to carry our own drinks and sodas when on the road. Previously, we would simply fill an ice chest with "blue ice" and sodas. Blue ice referring to those reusable packs of blue "ice" that cool stuff without leaving water pooling everywhere. Anyways, that idea works for road trips under 4 hours. Any more than that and you are lucky to get a cool-ish soda. Unless you want to pack every bit of blue ice that you own, which we've tried and it is a royal pain the the...Enter, the Wagan 12V Cooler/Warmer-24L size. We have a 2017 Toyota Rav4 and this fits perfectly behind the seats and center console. There is more than enough cord that it will reach from the back of the RAV all the way to the front, if you so desire. We want to be able to access it going down the road, so it sits behind the center console. The driver would have a bit of a problem getting into it at that angle, but I'm typically riding shotgun so that's not an issue. I can reach it from the passenger seat just fine. The cord runs between the console and the passenger seat through a paper towel tube in order to protect the cord when I move the seat forwards or back. The 12V plug in sits nicely on the little tray right in front of the outlet.We have taken drives upwards of 10 hours, probably even more, and we love this thing! Even if you are down to your last soda or bottle of water, it will be nice and cold. The ones on the top are just as cold as the ones on the bottom. All you have to do is start the car, plug it in, turn the switch to the "Cool" setting and a green light will come on. You will also hear a slight fan noise. And I do mean slight. Even in a quiet car, this thing only makes a soothing hum. No whining, whirring, obnoxious noises. Obviously, loading it with cold items gives it a head start on keeping things cold, but that only makes sense. We load everything straight from the fridge to the cooler. No blue ice, thank you.In the instructions, they point out that you should turn off the unit when you turn off the car for 2 reasons. #1 it might eat your battery and leave you stranded with a dead battery. Duh. #2, if you leave it on and plugged in, when you start your vehicle it may send a surge of power into the unit, possibly causing damage. Again, duh. We have no problem simply unplugging the unit when we stop and then plugging it back in when we start the RAV. We don't turn it to the Off position, we just leave it on Cool. We've used this for a lot of hours and had no issues.This even comes in great for grocery runs. The nearest grocery store is over 15 miles away so sometimes we are hesitant to buy ice cream, or anything frozen really. Unless it was the absolute last stop and we were heading straight home, then no ice cream. Not any more! Impromptu ice cream attacks only require us to plug in our unit and let it keep the ice cream perfectly frozen for the trip home. Even if we have to make more stops before heading home. The best report I can give so far is that it kept egg rolls frozen solid from Oceanside, CA all the way to the Oregon border. Obviously, there were multiple stops and there were drinks on top, but STILL!! That's a trip over 12 hours.Overall, I have to give this 5 stars. I can find nothing wrong with this unit. Why didn't I buy one sooner!

I had to wait a bit to leave a review for this product, until I had a chance to put it to the test. I have only tested the cooling ability since that was the only reason I purchased this cooler. I have not tested it as a warming chest. If that happens, I'll return to this review with an update.I initially took it on a couple of weekend trips, used only to maintain cool while driving. For each road trip, I pre-cooled it with the DC power adapter (sold separately). In each case, pre-cooling dropped the interior temp to about 32F, and the cooler maintained that temp while plugged into the socket in my vehicle. I've kept a fridge thermometer inside to monitor the temperature, and have been pleasantly surprised to achieve a temp lower than the advertised 32-36 degree F drop from ambient room temp. I wasn't using a super accurate digital thermometer, but it registered the same temp in the cooler as it does in my regular refrigerator...about 34 degrees F with ambient room temp of 76 degrees F.Most recently I gave it an extreme test on a two week trip to "summer camp". I spend a couple weeks every year taking classes in metalwork and silversmithing, and wanted to keep my personal food cool for the drive there and back, and during my stay.I pre-cooled and loaded the cooler with cold food and beverages, and set out for a 7 hour trip (5 1/2 hours driving and 1 1/2 hours stops for gas and rest/food). Upon arrival at my destination, I plugged it in using the DC adapter and kept it plugged in constantly for the entire 2 weeks. The cooler maintained the same temperature almost to the end of the 2 week stay.The only functional issue arose a couple days before the end of my stay when the temp began to rise a bit, to 40 degrees F. That was still cool enough for my purposes, so I kept it going, hoping it wasn't about to die on me. After a day of that I noticed a bit of icing up in the lid. By then, it contained nothing that would spoil, so I unplugged it for a few hours and allowed it to defrost. After that it resumed cooling as before. I can't really find fault with this since it was probably not designed for 2 weeks *solid* running, not to mention the humid conditions during that time. I would suggest if you need to run for extended periods, to monitor the temp, and at the first sign the it is inching up a bit, allow the cooler to defrost an hour or so. Or maybe do some preventive defrosting about once a week. I'll try that next time.This cooler replaced a standard cooler of the same size, but because I don't have to use ice, it has a greater interior capacity. I suggest if you buy this or any similar powered cooler, to also purchase and use a power adapter to pre-cool the interior before use.I am very pleased with the function of this cooler. I will return to this review after a year or so of use to report on the longevity and/or to report on warming function.