Connecting a Positive Jumper Cable

Don’t make this mistake or you can blow a battery fuse!

Everyone,

Soon after publishing my article last week on the NOCO portable jump starter I stumbled upon this thread on the F-150 Forum. It was about someone jump-starting another vehicle using their brother-in-law’s car.

But a battery misconnection during the jump-start killed his vehicle’s electrical system and it wouldn’t start after jumping the other car. This turned out to be a simple (if non-obvious) fix, but it would certainly a deal breaker if you were stuck in a parking lot with a now-dead car. And no, AAA would not be able to get your car started even if they swapped in a new battery.

Turns out you could probably create this type of failure yourself, even if you were using a portable booster. So read the thread below and take a look at my marked up picture and explanation near the bottom.

Clamp your jumper cable onto the battery terminal, NOT the fuse block!

If you clamp the positive jumper cable onto the fuse block instead of the terminal, you can push enough current through a low-current fuse to cause it to blow. That will shut down the 12-volt power to your vehicle’s electrical system which will will leave you and your car sitting until the fuse or fusible link can be replaced. Make sure to only clamp the positive jumper cable directly onto the battery terminal, not the fuse block. See my diagram below…

Let’s play safe out there… Mike