I had a quick look in the manual but didn't immediately find any reference to this. Is a TCH 12V battery up for the task of boosting another vehicle considering it isn't used to start the engine on the TCH. Also, if someone asked for a boost, would you be willing to try it and expose your power system to another car?

 

I did !

My G-F had forgotten her keys in the ignition overnight.

It was quite peculiar to backup to get alongside her car !!!

We had no issues, I followed the instruction manual (use the trunk ''lock'' as negative) and her car started right away.

 

Funny you should ask this, I was just wondering about a lighter to lighter jumpstart thing I bought a couple of years ago.

I know how to jump a car the regular way, but this thing is kind of cool. I used it with my 5 Series to jump a girlfriend's SUV.

It looks like a double-ended phone charger, meaning it has male parts on either end of the wire. Plug one end into your 'lighter' and the other into the dead vehicle 'lighter' and give 'er a go!

To my surprise, the thing actually worked pretty well, didn't need to connect and let it charge for more than ~2 minutes and she was on her way.

Not the 'macho' way to jump a car, but gotta admit, it's pretty effortless, and avoids you digging down to the battery, and getting dirty under the hood of the disabled vehicle.

I'm kind of sketchy about using it with the CamHy, though, anyone with any 'based in fact' thoughts of why I may or may not want to use this on my new Hybrid when I get it?

 

I have always been skeptical of these. Don't they have very thin wires connecting the 12V plugs? This doesn't seem like it could carry sufficient current to start a car. Typical jumper cables are very heavy gauge wire.

 

It does work, I jumped our Honda Oddysey last night.

 

Stay away from the high voltage battery or they will get a jump they wiil never forget lol.

 

I agree, I was skeptical as well. VERY skeptical, but her vehicle was stalled out at an awkward position so I thought I'd give it a shot, and it worked amazingly well. I'm the LAST person that would normally recommend using some little chintzy lighter to lighter car jumper that I picked up at ROSS for 8 bucks, and although I understand your point about the big gauge of regular jumper cables, this thing, with a cable about 3mm in diameter did the trick on a completely dead Tahoe when jumped from my 525i.

If you jump cars for a living, I probably wouldn't recommend it, but it wraps up to about the size of a TV remote, so it's MUCH easier to have with you than big ol' cumbersome cables.

Again, curious if anyone has any factually based opinions on why it might or might not be a good thing to use on a CamHy.

 

If I had to I would, but I have AAA, so if I weren't in a hurry I'd call them.

 

Those lighter to lighter jumpers work ok as long as the 'dead' battery is just run down. If it has a bad cell or other problems, you are out of luck.

If the TCH battery dies, I doubt you could use one of these to jump it. The lighter aka 12V power jacks are not powered unless the TCH is on. The TCH only needs a few amps from the 12V battery to boot up the computer. Once the TCH is on, the computer has the high voltage DC to 12V DC converter running and you are good to go.

I'd suggest carrying a small 8 or 10 gauge jumper set. It will let you charge up the TCH if it needs a jump, and allow you help someone by topping off their battery if they need a jump.

Due to the number of computers and electronics in the TCH, I would never try and start a vehicle while the jumpers are connected. Use the jumper cables to put a charge on the dead battery for 5 minutes or so, and if that doesn't do the job, call AAA.

 

I would believe this. Battery just low enough to not turn the car over, no cold winter temps. A 12V to 12V battery connection isn't going to draw a lot of current, basically the batteries will equalize given time and no external power source. The Hybrid ICE will start if the 12V gets too low so theoretically you won't draw down your 12V too much.

This is not quite the same a large gauge jumper cables taking the output of an alternator. In the frigid winter months, you still need to race the engine to get the alternator putting out max amps to start a dead car. This is NOT going to happen using your hybrid as a booster vehicle.