Hi,

I recently had the experience of jumping my 2007 A6 which has the battery in the boot and the jump points under the bonnet. Has anyone else found that the points are very close together? While in the process of jumping one of the leads moved resulting in both leads touching and shorting out. This resulted in a fried alternator and some parts of the MMI system and a hefty repair bill.

Is it just me or does this seem like a major design defect. If jumping from the battery terminal something like this would not be possible. I know in a BMW that the points are a safe distance apart.

Thanks.

 

I've never seen the layout of a boot (trunk) mounted battery, so I am no expert. However, while the positive cable has to be connected to the positive terminal, the negative cable can be connected to any exposed, grounded metal. When jumping batteries in the bonnet, I usually connect the negative cable to a solid piece of metal attached to the engine block. This provides reasonable separation.