Jump starting

[Simon Jones]

As long as you follow the instructions for jump starting in the respective owners manuals then you probably won't go too far wrong.

[canis]

Originally Posted by Clan

No harm at all in jump starting .. battery to battery the car is only 12 volts it cant do any harm .. a tip would be to leave the supplying cars engine running for 10 minutes to get some charge into the other cars battery before starting it .

Exactly what I do. The actual contact surface of the clips is very small, expecting a lot of current is expecting too much, I think. Ten minutes charging can make a huge difference, I have found.

Like others have said, I usually stop the donor engine first, but only because I'm told to. I've never had any problems not doing so, so it could be one of those myths.

Has anyone here ever blown a known-to-be-good alternator by jump starting another car?

[Baxlin]

Originally Posted by canis

Exactly what I do. The actual contact surface of the clips is very small, expecting a lot of current is expecting too much, I think. Ten minutes charging can make a huge difference, I have found.

Like others have said, I usually stop the donor engine first, but only because I'm told to. I've never had any problems not doing so, so it could be one of those myths.

Has anyone here ever blown a known-to-be-good alternator by jump starting another car?

No, but I think I'll continue to bottle it, as an extra ten minutes or so using my rapid charger removed any risk. Provided of course there's access to mains power.

However, thanks for all the comments, tbh, I can't remember the last time I started a car using jump leads, certainly I've not owned any since I moved to this house, nearly 40 years ago.

[GreenBrick]

Yeah, you do need to give them a charge monthly, which I stuck to rigidly and I guess that is why the original battery lasted so long.

[green van man]

Originally Posted by GreenBrick

Yeah, you do need to give them a charge monthly, which I stuck to rigidly and I guess that is why the original battery lasted so long.

That's my problem, I forget about it until I need it.
It's a result of not having a garage, it is stored in the attic and out of sight out of mind.

Paul.

[Craigtange]

Originally Posted by Baxlin

My daughter flattened the battery trying to start her car yesterday, and phoned me to ask me to jump start it. As I've had a few lecky type problems with the Volvo recently, I didn't want to risk it, so I took my rapid charger and after about 20 minutes there was enough in it to start the car.

This made me think though, with all the many wires and cables attached to car battery terminals nowadays, is jump starting a good idea on modern cars? (Couldn't even get to the -ve terminal on her Peugeot, I had to use a nearby earth point)

I left my interior lights on and now the battery is dead. Can I jump start my truck without a problem? If not what's the alternative.

[TeamG]

I have both - I’ve had the same jump leads since I passed my test and they’ve been used from everything from my first Cortina to current cars. Never a problem, except for one trip to the local tip where they borrowed them to jump a skip lorry from a 360 excavator and they got a little warm.

I’ve also got a Topdon jump pack which sits in the boot and is far more convenient than having to position the cars nose to nose. I regularly use it at my local Tesco when some old lady leaves the lights on her 25 year old Fiesta…. As others have said, I charge it once a month or 6 weeks, but the kids also use the USB-A and USB-C charging points for their gadgets when we’re out and about.

Personally, I’d use the jump pack for every car and the jump leads in emergency only, but that’s for convenience.