by Flack » Sun Jul 31, 2016 11:25 am
The negative side of your car battery is grounded to the frame, so in theory, hooking the negative end of the jumper cables to the post is the same as hooking it to the frame. In reality, it doesn't always work that way. It can be hard to find a spot on the frame where you can hook the jumper cable. If it's painted, like a lot of modern cars, then it may not work.
The reason they say not to hook it up post to post is that IF the battery was leaking gas (which it really shouldn't do) and IF it were to spark and IF it were to explode then it would blow your face off. If you hook it to the frame and it does spark and your battery is leaking gas, hopefully the spark will be far enough away from the battery that it won't explode.
That being said, your battery probably isn't leaking gas, it probably won't spark, and even if it does, it probably won't blow up. 99.999% of people never have a problem doing it this way. 0.001% of people no longer have a face.
The negative side of your car battery is grounded to the frame, so in theory, hooking the negative end of the jumper cables to the post is the same as hooking it to the frame. In reality, it doesn't always work that way. It can be hard to find a spot on the frame where you can hook the jumper cable. If it's painted, like a lot of modern cars, then it may not work.
The reason they say not to hook it up post to post is that IF the battery was leaking gas (which it really shouldn't do) and IF it were to spark and IF it were to explode then it would blow your face off. If you hook it to the frame and it does spark and your battery is leaking gas, hopefully the spark will be far enough away from the battery that it won't explode.
That being said, your battery probably isn't leaking gas, it probably won't spark, and even if it does, it probably won't blow up. 99.999% of people never have a problem doing it this way. 0.001% of people no longer have a face.