Jumping car damage

DOM.MAN

MEMBER
2005 FORD F-150
V8
4WD
AUTOMATIC
145 MILES

When jumping a battery car to car and the jumper puts cables on backwards whose car gets damaged receiver or the car who has cables on I correctly? Or both?

Saturday, October 12th, 2019 AT 11:58 PM

3 Replies

BMDOUBLE

MECHANIC
1,139 POSTS

It depends how each vehicle is fused and grounded, one vehicle may be fused better and have better grounds than the other. Electricity always finds the path to least resistance so the one with weaker grounds and fuses will be the victim, possibly both but when I've seen my porters do this, one car gets smoked.

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Sunday, October 13th, 2019 AT 12:31 AM

DOM.MAN

MEMBER
3 POSTS

Thanks for your response. Question. What do you mean "smoked". So I have a 2005 Ford F150 xlt 4x4 and I hooked up my cables correctly and my neighbor has a 2 door Jeep not sure the year but can't be much newer than mine if it even is. He hooked up his cables incorrectly. I was getting the charge. When I started my truck I no longer had any radio. And just recently my truck hasn't been turned on for approximately 10 weeks. Battery fully charged tight connection and cleaned of any corrosion. Alarm light on, head lights try to come on truck acts like it is getting the charge but then stops. Battery continues to fully charge. No signs of electricity any where but alarm light on dash board. Strange loud ticking for 30 seconds in between back of cab and beginning of truck bed where they come together. Any Ideas for this problem? Oh yeah, when I used my truck the last day before it was parked to present time the only issue was loss of radio. I read that it could be a wiring issue or a alternator blown from incorrect battery placement.

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Sunday, October 13th, 2019 AT 5:55 AM

STEVE W.

MECHANIC
13,367 POSTS

Smoked = something burnt out.
90% of the time the vehicle that has the lower battery charge will be the one to sustain damage if the jump is connected wrong. That is due to the "good" battery feeding the circuits the wrong polarity from the connection.
However you mention that your truck had only a bad radio, but that you let it set 10 weeks. 10 weeks is long enough that your battery is very discharged, especially if this is the one that was jumped in reverse polarity. Lights coming on doesn't mean much, they only draw a few amps while the starter will draw more than 200 amps. The discharged battery can cause a lot of other "problems" that will vanish when a good battery is installed.
The first thing I would do is pull the battery and have it load and amp tested. Most parts stores will do that for free. Then once you get the truck running take it back and have them run a charging system test on it.

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Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 AT 5:13 PM