Safest way to jump off another vehicle

This is the way I was taught. Positive to Positive and Negative to Ground (Engine Block or Body Bolt).

Because you are trying to jump the starter to start the car, then have the alternator takes over to juice up the dead battery.

If you instead connect negative to negative, that dead battery would then sap power that would have went to the starter, basically having the donor battery work double duty.

 

Call AAA. Guaranteed safest.

 

Now that’s what I am talking about. Faster moving electrons = faster jumpstart!

 

Git those angry pixies all riled up!

 

Jump packs are so convenient. Get one. My Hulkman 85 in it's case tucks tightly in the rear seat cubby like it was built for it. only took 3% off the top of the charge to jump my friends subaru. Highly recommend. I keep it in there year round except when it gets recharged yearly.

 

What are some good quality jump packs. Seen prices all over the place from $40 to over $140.00. Also the amps, what is recommended?

 

You get what you pay for in ease of use and reliability. Nothing worse than a cheap booster crapping out when you need it.
NOCO GB70 has plenty of power, and easy to use.
https://no.co/gb70

 

Has anyone else ever accidentally let the positive and negative jumper connectors touch while the other ends were connected to battery? I have. It was an instant weld, but not a good one.

I also once allowed a small piece of metal fall onto the positive and negative terminals. It glowed and then melted away.

Good times. In both cases the truck and the people were unhurt. This was back in the days where we kids road in the back of pickups and no one wore bicycle helmets.

And those aren’t the best stories. I was once driving my 1974 rust bucket Datsun pickup down a city street at night with bungie straps holding the fenders on when the engine suddenly stopped running and a spot on the hood started to glow reddish orange. I was thinking close encounters of the third kind, but it was because the hood had shorted the battery. Don’t forget those red positive terminal covers.

 

If I'm going to short a battery I make sure to reach for these:

 

Absolutely loved growing up playing lawn darts with ones like that. They've been banned for so many years here.

 

I thought this was going to be a thread about jumping over vehicles.

 

Those were fun.

 

Why is this? Just asking as I've jumped hundreds of vehicles with hundreds of vehicles(decades at dealers) and never once had an issue. Have seen what happens when you cross pos and neg or ground to something dumb but assuming you have a basic understanding, why not? Dont have to worry about half dead under rated jump pack

 

Speaking of not great stories, I had an uncle who was having problems with his vw sandrail starting, he's stuck out in the bush trying to get it going and climbed underneath it with a screwdriver. He reached up and shorted the starter across the terminals and ran himself over..

had an uncle.

 

I’m sorry for your loss.

 

Lots of mistakes can happen, also battery size does matter, you put your alternator , battery, and electronics at risk. Why risk a $40k vehicle when good quality jump packs like JNC are ~$100.

 

I think jump packs are a great tool. Not needing a second vehicle is a game changer. However, I do not understand this fear of jumper cables. When and where I grew up using jumper cables was a basic life skill taught in high school.

 

The reason the last connection is to the frame is to keep the spark away from the battery (explosion). Nothing to do with power being dissipated differently from connecting at a different point. It's close to zero ohms from the neg bat term to the block so it doesn't matter where you connect it.

 

In shop class a kid blew up a cabinet in the shop because he put his battery in it to charge over the weekend, he didn't want to leave it out and have someone to steal it. When he took the cables off they sparked and went boom. No one was harmed.

As far as jumping goes, every time I have done it I first open up both hoods so any built up gas can dissipate while I dig out my cables.
I've done lots of jumps over the years always hooking dead red to live red then live black to dead black with never an issue.