When a jumpstart goes wrong? Safety Question

Neighbor tried jumping my wife’s ‘06 Nissan Altima, we left it for 10 minutes and came back and the cables had melted through the headlight of both cars and some of the bumper. I wasn’t there but thankfully they stopped their car and were able to disconnect the cables without incident. We noticed after there had been mice living in around her engine from the mouse poop, minimum the last two weeks. What causes jumper cables to do this? Something a rodent may have chewed? Definitely an issue with my wife’s car. Our poor neighbors have a newish midsized suv. My wife has also had constant issues starting her car, even with a new battery I got a year or two ago. Anyone seen this before?

1.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

View all comments

u/HappySkullsplitter Dec 31 '23

I feel kind of surprised that I've never seen this before

1

u/1200____1200 Dec 31 '23

It's because very few people would leave the cables connected for any longer than it took to fire up the dead car

Tack on walking away from the cars and you have an uncommonly bad set of decisions being made here