jump starting a car....

[Amber-Rose]

a work colleagues car had a flat battery. He asked me if he could use my car to jump his. i said ok. Immediately after his car started, I got back in mine and it stalled. I re-started my car and an electrical warning light came on and has been on every since. I am thinking when his car started it blew or tripped something in mine. Can that happen? Its got to be more than a conincident surely.... Advice please. x

[Hymie]

It is very possible that the momentary dip in battery voltage due to jump starting another car can upset the ECU on modern cars.

A colleague of mine suffered this after using his Fiesta to jump start another car. He never managed to fully resolve the resultant problems – and sold the car before it gave him more grief.

[HowardKennitby]

If you connected the leads the wrong way round that might cause problems. If you didn't there is no reason to assume anything should have happened.

[chas2008]

its usually the other way around, problems can occur with the car being jump started, out of interest which make of vehicle are we talking about ?(yours)

[johnk]

Best to run the donor car at higher than usual revs for a few minutes to get some juice into the dead battery and then try.

[Baldric]

That's the way to do it!

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Jump_Start_a_Car