I was trying to jump my buick rendezvous, I had the live vehicle running and I know the cables were connected correctly because the buick started to turnover. I tried it a couple of times, and then the car stopped/died, and now there is no juice going anywhere. No clicking, no dome light, nothing. Did I fry something, or is the battery just DEAD?
That’s a very good question. You’d have to give us a better description of “cables connected correctly” before we could venture a guess.
How old is the battery in the Buick? Did anything happen to the donor car?
Donor Car is fine. I revved it a few times before trying to start buick.
I had both the negative on the donor car connected to negative battery terminal, and the positive connected to the positive.
on Buick,
Positive connected to positive connection, and the negative connected to a ground (bare piece of metal in the engine compartment)
In all probability I’ll bet it’s just the cables aren’t connected GOOD. You may the cables hooked up correctly…but they also need to make good contact also. Is this the typical GM Side-Post battery?? If so those are notorious for not getting a good connection with jumper cables.
I am not sure. I had it replaced a number of years ago at a Monroe Service station.
Thanks for your help.
The car has 156K+ miles on it.
That’s the correct way. I like to connect the negative jumper cable to the engine block of the car to be jumped, but any bare metal should do.
I suspect you’re not getting a good enough connection for the jump to be successful. You need clean battery cable ends (and ground point), thick, heavy jumper cables, and good, tight connections. Sometimes just wiggling the jumper cables a bit and trying again helps.
If you need to jump your battery it’s time to have it, and the charging system, tested. Odds are you need a new battery, alternator, or both.
You hooked the cables up…so you have to know.
Are the posts on TOP of the battery or on the side??? Look at the battery.