Jump start advice - barchettaman
I was a good samaritan to a friend´s flat battteried car this morning, but without success. Having connected everything up I couldn´t get the other car to turn over more than twice, and pretty weak turnovers they were too.

This was after waiting 5+ minutes for a charge to get through, revving my Astra, starting hers with my engine running, then mine off, basically doing all I could think of.

Anything else to try before I go to buy her a new battery? She´s not an AA/RAC member BTW.

Is her battery basically kippered? Her car had been standing for a while and was completely dead to begin with. Not a sausage. So that´s what I suspect.

Any ideas gratefully received.
Jump start advice - bell boy
astra"s are cracking cars as doner starters i used to run one for this reason.If your jump leads are good quality and werent smoking then i would take the battery off the failed car and give it a low charge for 24 hours or as you say get a new one,batteries have never been as cheap as they are these days,suggest you wait till tomorrow mind when the motor factors are open as sunday batteries are always dearer.
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\"a little man in a big world/\"
Jump start advice - defender
how did you connect leads ? if you connect pos/pos and neg/neg then run donor for 5 mins fairly fast idle then take neg jump lead of the neg terminal on the flat battery and connect it to a seperate earth on the engine ,leave your own engine running and try the starter ,it sounds like the flat battery is soaking up all the power from the jump leads
Jump start advice - barchettaman
The leads were poor quality cheapy shop name deleted - DD ones - part of a breakdown set. Hers BTW.
Maybe that could have played a part...?