"How hard can it be?"

Assumes that the battery is easy to get at and also settings don't get lost when disconnected.

I try not to make "common sense" assumptions about newish cars, since my impression (thankfully no experience) is that "common sense" doesn't apply to them, as you seem to confirm.

I've never had a car where the battery terminals were hard to get to, nor would I ever consider buying one.

I'm slightly surprised (and depressed) that some people apparently do..

. Similarly I've never had a car which had any "settings" to loose, but in the latter case I assume you could connect up a small 12V battery in parallel which would retain power in the system while/if the main one was disconnected.

OTOH if worried about your fragile electronics, as well you might be on a newish car, why not just disconnect your battery before attaching the leads?

Because the whole point about keeping the engine running on the donor car means the alternator's providing an additional current boost for the starter of the other car.

Yeh, I get that.

But the OP is concerned about frying electronics, and is asking about a seperate starter battery to avoid any risk. (apart from the potentially explosive reverse connection risk, which still applies)

My point is he already has one..

Edited by edlithgow on 13/12/2022 at 13:37