so the wife's TL was dead. I asked her to put it in neutral so I could push it back to an easier angle, no go, so I pulled around to the other side, no problem.

Popped the hood, went to jump it, positive clamp kept slipping off of my truck's sidemount post, did it three times total. Went over to her car to start it up, smoke was coming out of the radio and the horn starting honking, looked down and the key was in the 'on' position. I shut it off, disconnected the cables, made sure the car didn't burst into flames and said I'll look at it later.

What kind of damage could I be looking at?

 

maybe check your fuse box see u blown any fuse.

 

 

?? could be all sorts of bad. having the key on and connecting the cables shouldnt have caused that. flip flopping the Positive and Negative may have?

 

I would start checking fuses too

 

Yeah, I agree. I think you had the cables on wrong. It blows the main fuse.

 

yeah just having the keys in wouldn't do that, but if the cables touched in may have caused a short, which is really the only way the explain the smoking radio

 

You might be wise also to check your truck's fuses & electronic accessories.

If you reversed cables and the effect was sufficient to blow smoke from her radio, then damage might not be limited to her TL.

Just some thoughts from an engineer whose done some stupid things in his day(!)

 

your truck doesn't happen to be one of these weird voltage trucks does it? Like a tow truck? LOL jk good luck man.

 

I checked every fuse, relay, etc. that I could find under the hood and dash of the TL, nothing blown. Hooked the cables up again to see what would happen... horn goes on constant tone and nothing else works...

99.999% positive the cables were on correct... I've made that mistake before (which resulted in a fire)...


edit: car goes to the shop tomorrow, guess we'll see

 

more likely the cable slipped off the truck battery and shorted the TL battery/electrical system
Smoke from the radio- are you kidding with that one?

Hopefully there is a master fuse 50 amp that you missed- thats supposed to protect in the situation of loose hot lead hits ground

 

no, unfortunately, there was a whisp of smoking coming out of the cassette slot on the radio when I got in it.

I'm wondering if the horn malfunctioning and the smoke coming out of the radio is a sign that some of the anti-theft components got fried...

 

One can only hope!! and get a real alarm and stereo for it!!

 

Wow. Smoke coming out of the radio does not sound good.

Unfortunately, if you fried a pile of electronic components the repair cost can be insanely expensive.

Good luck with the diagnosis. Hopfully it's something simple.

 

well, I'm hoping that the reason that the car was "dead" was that something had already shorted out minimizing the damage.

It should be at the shop by now, hopefully they find something small...

 

Just a reminder to all:
Never connect the 2 batteries together
The good car gets both cables hooked up
The dead car gets POS to battery POS
and the NEG cable goes to a ground like the engine or bare metal of shock tower bolts
That protects BOTH cars in case the dead car has a short anywhere

Note 2: hook up dead car first- then good car, so you are not standing there in a puddle of water with 12volt 700 amps!!! in your hand---
live electricity looking for the shortest path to ground is not good for your health
Lets see- you are 90% water and under 6 feet tall- well this looks like a good place!!!

 

shop called earlier today

He said that they found a "main" 120amp fuse blown in a panel on the passenger side that I didn't know about. They replaced the fuse, car fired right up, radio asked for the security code, horn off, etc perfectly fine. He says that they checked the entire wire bundle for shorts, checked the grounds, everything, can't figure why the fuse blew and caused the initial thinking that it needed a jump, which kind of worries both of us, but advised that we get a back up fuse in case it happens again.

$30.

So I'll get an extra fuse or two, and if it happens again, it'll have a fresh fuse when it goes to the dealer as a trade-in on a new 08 TL-S

 

That's great news but I would still be troubled by both the blown fuse the smoke coming out of the radio when you tried to jump the car.

And fuses typically blow for a reason. If the new fuse blows you'll need to figure out what's going on.

You might want to keep a fire extinguisher in the car.

 

bad thing is that they didn't find the code to turn it on, so we're not 100% that the radio works yet until we get it home Thursday night.

but yeah, the mechanic and I are both very leery about the whole mysterious fuse blowing thing. I told my wife not to carry anything valuable in her car that she can't pick up and run with if needed

 

Why worry ? The fuse wouldn't blow if you didn't jump-start the car. Or has the fuse blown before even if you weren't jump-starting the car ? Jump-starting cars are not healthy. The huge inrush current may cause havoc to the electrical systems, and the fuses are there to try to protect them.

 

battery and alternator checked out fine, the fuse was apparently blown before hand, that's what made us think that the car was "dead".... then jumping fiasco ensued...