jumping - need your help!

[broseed]

hi everyone,

i stupidly left my lights on last night and now my battery is totally dead. i tried jumping with my friend's car but i was only able to turn the engine over 5 or 6 times every few minutes and it never caught (tried for about 1/2 hour - his car is a 97 Audi A6) - usually the car starts up right away with a full battery!

is there a secret to jumping these cars or might i have damaged something letting the battery go totally dead?

tks for any advice - this board rocks!

-Dylan

[Rot 911]

I'm guessing either cheap battery cables, corroded battery connections or your battery is so dead it won't take a charge.

[WERK I]

Three things;
Use heavy duty jumper cables - those cheap blue lite specials that have light gauge cables are worthless.
You're battery is completely dead - you need to have the other car run for at least a half hour to allow the charging system bring your dead system up to a higher state of charge.
Alternators when running are not the best for bringing a dead battery back to life. Once the dead car starts, go get the battery fully charged.

Good luck,

Dave

[broseed]

Thanks for the advice guys! The cables I was using were definitely cheap (they were skinny and pretty hot after we finished using them) - I'm off to the auto shop now.

Thanks again.

-Dylan

[LFogelson]

If it is manual transmission roll start it.

[Joe Bob]

Even if ya roll start it, the battery needs a good charge. The alternator is made to maintain a charge, not bring one back to life. Either invest in a trunk mounted trickle charger and/or a garage 2-8 amp garage model.

Oh yeah, loose the K-Mart special jumper cables.....

[Don Plumley]

Was the car you used to jump it running? Once I remember that even at idle, the other car was not producing enough juice to turn the motor. Once I had my kid advance the throttle to 2K or so RPM, then the Porsche turned right over.

[stormcrow]

Best thing to do when you are jump starting a car with a dead battery is to keep the revs up on the the donor vehicle. This will help charge the dead battery faster on the host vehicle.

Steve

"A Porsche does more then just go fast in a straight line"