I’m not sure “confused” is the right word, but yeah, I was hoping for a “here’s-the-one-way-it’s-done” type panacea that doesn’t seem to exist. On the other hand, the general message I get from all these great responses is: “Lots of ways will work, but some are safer than others. Don’t do anything stupid and you should be fine.” And that will do. Thanks, everyone.
And t-keela, my car is a '96 Honda Civic, and the dead car I was jumping (in this case) was a '94 Toyota Camry wagon. (Though in my ideal world there would be a single procedure by which I could use my Honda to jump any other car.)
I saw a battery explode one time. My friend’s car had conked, and he asked me to help him. He said he knew what he was doing, so I left my car running and let him hook up the cables. As he completed the final connection, which was to his dead car’s negative battery terminal, there was a LOUD noise and the top of his battery exploded into pieces, making a big hole in the top.
What happened, it seems, is that there was substantial debris and moisture on the surface of his battery and that was enough to complete the connection between the positive and negative terminals of his battery, causing an impressive short circuit.
The lessons I took from this:
if my car is involved, I’m going to be the one to hook everything up and make sure it’s done correctly;
use a ground rather than the negative terminal because you’ll be unlikely to experience this kind of short circuit;
keep the surface of your battery clean and confirm that it’s clean on the battery you’re jumping, too.
And t-keela, my car is a '96 Honda Civic, and the dead car I was jumping (in this case) was a '94 Toyota Camry wagon. (Though in my ideal world there would be a single procedure by which I could use my Honda to jump any other car.)
There is, Honda isn’t too particular…
Pablito, it wasn’t a short circuit…it was hydrogen gas being set off by the spark caused when your friend made the last connection. If he had connected the running car last, it wouldn’t have happened.