I could kick myself...

Left my key in the ignition when I was washing my car this morning as I wanted to listen to the radio. Gone out several hours later and the battery is nearly flat and wont start the car, it tried but sounded quite pathetic lol.

The battery is only 2 months old.

Is it possible to jump start a diesel? Have read several conflicting articles on the interweb.

Do you mean 'jump start' or 'bump start'? The answer to jumpstarting (with jumpleads) is clearly 'yes', but I'm not sure the ECU will allow a bump start. I've bump-started Army Bedfords in the past (with the assistance of four others, I hasten to add!) so it must be possible in theory...

It'll jump start the same way as anything else will, once the glowplugs have cycled. I seriously doubt you could bump-start a cold diesel though.

I do mean jump start. I know it sounds like a daft question, but I did find a few articles that said you couldnt on a diesel. Have now seen plenty that say you can. Trip to Halfrauds when my wife gets home then.

You can jump and bump start a diesel, no problem at all!

The only proviso I know of with a diesel is to ensure that what you are jumping off has enough power to "light" the glow plugs first, and most cars, with engines running, will be adequate. It mostly affects those silly little retail "jump start packs".

Jump and Bump are possible, I had a tired battery, first of all had someone Jump start me, got home, expected to not be able to start in the morning. Got my dad to Bump start me. Advice for any one reading this, don't stand behind the exhaust when pushing, especially with light grey joggers

A desiel in theory is more compliant to being bump started than a petrol due to the combution cycle. I've hand cracked a 2 cyclinder desiel before though thankfully it had compresion levers. get one cylinder going then feed in the second cylinder compresion. Old school does have it's advantages in some cases. Not a job I can recomend though :no:

Well I went out and bought some jump leads. The instructions said to connect the live from the good battery to the bad battery, then connect the negative from the good battery to the chassis of the other car. That seemed odd to me as in the past I have just connected live to live and negative to negative. Anyway I followed the intructions and nowt happened. Did it my way and she fired up fine. Had a nice drive around for 30 mins and all seems ok, well it did last night, just hope it's ok this morning!

The new "official instructions" are to protect the battery on the "good" car, if the problem with the "bad" car is a FUBAR battery. In your case, we're fairly sure the battery was just discharged.

Just noticed this thread was in the wrong forum - hope it's sorted now, though!

Iv bump and jump started my fabia lots of times, from cold. Both work a treat

Matt

Well I went out and bought some jump leads. The instructions said to connect the live from the good battery to the bad battery, then connect the negative from the good battery to the chassis of the other car. That seemed odd to me as in the past I have just connected live to live and negative to negative. Anyway I followed the intructions and nowt happened. Did it my way and she fired up fine. Had a nice drive around for 30 mins and all seems ok, well it did last night, just hope it's ok this morning!

your chassis conection was bad then..

Mine got Bump Started after fixing my alternator belt with a really flat battery

your chassis conection was bad then..

Yeh could have been a poor connection to the chassis.

Normally you'll hook the negative clamp to somewhere on the engine - there's normally a metal bracket with a hole in it, somewhere near the top or side of the engine for that.

Further to that, in the past I have started the good car and left it to idle for a few mins to allow the dead battery to charge up before trying to start the dead car

I'd tried connecting to the chassis and also the engine but neither worked. Yes I did leave the "donor" car idling for a while before I started mine. Glad to say I've had no problem with mine since