Dead engine battery - how to start car using leisure battery

[SachaP]

First of all, hello to all. I joined up recently, having bought a 1995 2.5 diesel Bongo a week ago. The Bongo started absolutely fine when I got it, but after a few days of sitting on the driveway, the battery has gone flat, not fully, but enough to not enable to engine to fire up. I will check if I may have left an interior light on by mistake. Can I utilise the leisure battery to start the engine, by attaching jump leads from the LB to the EB to get the engine to crank over (assuming the LB has sufficient juice)? If the LB is also too low on power, then I will use my other car to jump start.

[mikeonb4c]

First of all, hello to all. I joined up recently, having bought a 1995 2.5 diesel Bongo a week ago. The Bongo started absolutely fine when I got it, but after a few days of sitting on the driveway, the battery has gone flat, not fully, but enough to not enable to engine to fire up. I will check if I may have left an interior light on by mistake. Can I utilise the leisure battery to start the engine, by attaching jump leads from the LB to the EB to get the engine to crank over (assuming the LB has sufficient juice)? If the LB is also too low on power, then I will use my other car to jump start.

Welcome. I've used a healthy (stress that) 135ah leisure battery connected via jump leads to fast charge a flat starter battery on two occasions. Left them connected for a minute or so then hey presto (provided your engine starts on a touch like my diesel). But i wouldn't ask an LB to crank an engine directly as they're not designed to deliver that kind of power.

[SachaP]

Thanks Mike. I will use the spare car to provide the juice. I don't want to take any risks, as we are planning to head out to Norfolk in the Bongo for the weekend.