Jumping a Car Battery

I'm pretty sure it's the citric acid that eats it away, so any brand should work.

 

Interesting.

On the other hand, I've never heard of one exploding like that. How often does it happen? Are we talking 1-in-1,000 or 1-in-1,000,000?

 

Not nearly as well as with a Coke. Which might tell you all you need to know about Coke; I mean, if it eats through battery corrosion, what's it doing to your gut?

 

Gave a family a jump a couple of weeks ago, on a road trip. Pulled into a gas station and they were stuck and asked. No problem.

They were surprised. The first person who drove up flat-out refused. The mom said she pleaded with them, saying they had kids in the car (two families in a single minivan stopped at some remote gas station in BFE). The driver said "Not my problem" and drove off.

I can't imagine not helping them out. Heck, they even had the cables hooked up. It didn't take three minutes.

Some people have no compassion.

 

North Dakotans can be pricks.

 

I've seen 2 batteries explode.
The first, a couple of us were helping another car in the Astrodome parking lot. One clamp kept slipping and one guy told me to hold it in place. I stepped away just a couple of seconds before the battery exploded or I would have gotten it right in the face.
The second was my car in a bank parking lot after hours. A guy right there offered to help. He grabbed my cables, hooked them up. BLAMO. He got a bit of acid on one hand but quickly washed it off in a fountain in front of the bank.
To this day, I am really gun-shy about doing it. I will do it, but very uncomfortably.

 

All this said, investing in AAA is not a bad move at all.

 

Some of us would jump practically anything. I never considered doing it with a battery.

 

En route. It was somewhere in Indiana, I think. North Dakotas would probably just push the damn thing to the destination.

 

Win.

And Zeke: Some people grow up in real cities with real buildings and real people who fix cars. We don't live in the mountains and hoard guns and canned food. We don't have to know how to change a tire or whatever else you mentioned. My driver's ed class consisted of like two weeks of in-class studies of signs and speed limits, then each group going out with the instructor for driving. The end. I didn't learn how to change anything or fix anything or even what most of the buttons and switches and signals do.

 

So long as metal clamps are involved, I'm in.

 

Same here, Buck-Dub ... wherever "here" seems to be.

KJIM, the only thing that might make sense - other than the obvious lack of compassion angle - is that people these days are concerned that some people may have ulterior motives. To some, they might see a setup that involves a mugging or worse. Not saying that's my stance, but it's not a stretch to consider IMO.

And AAA? Yup ... Automatic Attitude Adjuster. (i.e., an aluminum baseball bat is stowed away in the vehicle ... )