Can I jump start my toad from my motor home?

[CRJGal]

We have found our toad battery dead, after towing the vehicle with the Unified Tow Brake hooked up. We had the battery (which is new) and the charging system tested, and everything is fine. Until we can figure out the cause of this problem, our question is this:

Can we jump start the toad from our 6 6-vol house batteries, or our chassis batteries? Is so, what is the correct procedure to perform this safely?

(Also, if anyone has any ideas about the discharge of our toad battery, we would appreciate it.)

[Rwake901]

Went to Florida last fall and the new battery in our toad went dead from the Breaking system. I jumped started it off the 12 volt motorhome chassis battery. No problems

[Bill_Satellite]

CRJGal wrote:
We have found our toad battery dead, after towing the vehicle with the Unified Tow Brake hooked up. We had the battery (which is new) and the charging system tested, and everything is fine. Until we can figure out the cause of this problem, our question is this:

Can we jump start the toad from our 6 6-vol house batteries, or our chassis batteries? Is so, what is the correct procedure to perform this safely?

(Also, if anyone has any ideas about the discharge of our toad battery, we would appreciate it.)

Your house batteries may be 6 volt but they are wired together as a 12V bank. Just be sure you connect the correct terminals (Positive on 1 battery and the negative connection on the second battery) so that you output 12V to the car.

[wolfe10]

Couple of points. You can use either battery bank of the coach to jump (see below) the toad. The chassis batteries are a no brainer, since they are 12 VDC

If using the house bank, CAREFULLY find the positive going to the house and negative going to the house. If in doubt, verify with our voltmeter that it is 12 VDC.

The caution-- with modern vehicles, they can be very sensitive to voltage spikes.

So, best to connect the toad battery to coach battery. DO NOT ATTEMPT to start the toad. Let the battery charge up for 10-15 minutes-- longer if convenient. Then disconnect the jumper and start the toad.

Could you "jump start". Probably, but unless in a huge hurry, why chance it?

[YC_1]

Yes. If you are really patient and the distance between the rv and the toad is a bit long you can connect the two jumper cables together to make one long one and charge the toad battery. leave the tow hitch in place to increase the ground side of the equation. Connect the long cables to the positives of each 12 volt system. DO NOT try to start the vehicle with this setup. The large demand could damage the wimpy grounds that might be in place. Let the battery charge for 30-60 minutes, disconnect and then start.

When you have time build a toad charging system to prevent damaging your toad battery due to constant drainage.

Some folks may come be doing back flips at my suggestion but it will work fine.

If you are close enough to do a normal jump start that is even better of course.

[Rangerider]

You can also run a charge line between the motorhome and the toad to keep the battery charged up.

[JohnBoyToo]

What's the yr, mfg, and model of the toad?

bet it has some type of keep alive circuitry like radio , alarm, etc.... that drains the battery down...
knowing your toad, you can research THAT vehicle to see which fuse to pull (or where to put your switched jumper so you can turn it off)

barring that - stop every couple of hours and start the toad...

[wallynm]

Chassis battery + to + and - to -