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?

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126

u/kurangak Dec 31 '23

why do you need to leave it for 10 minutes tho? rev up the jumper car's engine to 2k-2.5k for a few seconds an then try to start the dead car's engine.

my best guess is, u guys used a cheap jumper cable. i noticed cheap jumper cable can get quite hot quite quickly. 10 minutes definitely enough to turn it into branding iron

71

u/Mitch_Darklighter Dec 31 '23

This is the best evidence that the neighbor is not as handy as OP thinks.

28

u/Outcasted_introvert Dec 31 '23

100%. This guy doesn't know how to jump start a car. That suggests he is quite capable of connecting up to the wrong terminals.

Confidence=/=competence

0

u/corvairfanatic Dec 31 '23

Why do you think he doesn’t know how to jump a car?

11

u/Outcasted_introvert Dec 31 '23

Because they left it connected for 10 minutes, unattended.

2

u/ku20000 Jan 02 '24

Yeah, I would not have left the scene even if it took 30 minutes. WTF.