The "negative terminal" is the engine lifting eye:

Or anywhere on the block.

I would only use the positive terminal and the lifting eye for jump-starting the car, though. If you're going to charge the battery using a battery tender or trickle charger, connect it directly to the battery itself.

 

:facepalm: No, the lifting eyelet is not the negative post fir jump charging.

If you look in the "drug bin" you will see a negative terminal for putting your charging clips similar to the positive charging point.


See the picture posted above


.

 

If your jump starting, you can use the positive terminal and any point in the engine bay that is bare metal.

For trickle charging, I would always go straight to the battery itself, in the trunk.

 

The "negative terminal" is the engine lifting eye:

Or anywhere on the block.

I would only use the positive terminal and the lifting eye for jump-starting the car, though. If you're going to charge the battery using a battery tender or trickle charger, connect it directly to the battery itself.

You can use almost anything to ground but I personally use the provided post. It's at the bottom of this picture courtesy of Paraklas :

 

"For trickle charging, I would always go straight to the battery itself, in the trunk."

Why's that? What wrong with charging through the provided post at the engine bay? too much voltage drop on the long cable from front to batt?

 

You could use the post, but that post goes from the front to the back of the car while going through every single electronic in the engine bay essentially. It's mainly a preference thing

 

I can see one situation that a car turned over slowly during a normal starting and did not run, but when jumped from the red post and the lifting eye it started up perfect. This scenario could happen if the cable connecting the engine block to the chassis was corroded at the two end connectors, or the bolts were not tightly torqued. In this case jump start from the factory negative post would not help.

 

You can see a lot of situations. It just convenient and expressly made for that. If your engine ground is gone, you have a serious problem.:drool:

 

"If your engine ground is gone, you have a serious problem."

Fair enough. But with some additional resistance from corrosion the car might have a hard time to crank with hundreds of amps but once it started the DME and sensors might work fine with this minute resistance without issue. In this case one could jump start and able to get home or the shop instead of stranded away form home.

 

"You could use the post, but that post goes from the front to the back of the car while going through every single electronic in the engine bay essentially"


Front or rear negative post have no difference since it is the entire chassis metal. As for the positive path, the red post connected to the gigantic red cable going directly from the said post to the batt, without passing to any other electronic parts in the engine bay. The current during light duty trickle charge is so small that any voltage drop on the long big red cable is a fraction of a volt. Voltage drop = charging current x cable resistance = 0.5A x 0.1 ohms = 0.05V. 0.05v / 14V = 0.4% difference, and so it's not worth the trouble to dig up the battery compartment.

 

Hi

Thank you to all of you who have contributed an answer. There's just one further question; what and where is the " Drug Bin" that some of you mention? As you are probably aware, I'm from the UK and as such am unfamiliar with that term.

Thank you once again.

 

Well in the US it's a big empty space on the right hand side of the engine bay near the fire wall. Unfortunately, in the UK yours will be filled with the brake booster and steering column. It also used to hold the old ASC module in 99-00 models. I have no idea what a right side drive engine bay looks.

 

what about here?

 

That's the drug bin. No idea if those terminals exist there on UK cars.

 

You can ground anywhere that's bare metal if you want the jump start. It's all grounded together so it doesn't matter.

I'm sure you can do the same with a trickle charger but I just personally always trickle directly to battery, it's just a me thing, if there's no resistance and the amps from the charger can pass through the rest if the material it is grounded too, then it should be of no concern