After reading how many have had battery problems with their 350h, I do not think I would offer to help jump start anyone. I own a large portable jump starter but it is heavy and required charging every once in a while.

 

I wouldn't do it. The 12v battery is only designed to power up the hybrid and run a few accessoroes, it doesn't have the crakinng amps to start an engine. My personal recommendation to anyone (hybrid owner or not) is to buy one of those small jump starter packs and keep it in the car. That way you can not only start your own car if your battery goes flat, but also give someone else a jump start with it if they need help. I got a reasonably inexpensive one from Amazon a few years ago, and it's started everything up to a Jaguar V8.

 

If I were to feel a strong need to jump another vehicle from an RX hybrid, I would do it directly from the battery with the RX completely shut down. That is actually the safest way to jump start from any vehicle. I've found that to be sufficient most of the time in starting another vehicle and, if that doesn't work, then starting the donor vehicle usually won't work either.

Basically, you are using your vehicle's battery in the same way that you'd use a portable jump starter. There is a concern that it could leave your own battery dead if the jumped vehicle doesn't start right away though.

 

So I wanted to confirm, given that I seem to foresee having to do this very soon: What is the correct order for connecting the leads in terms of positive/red and the negative/black ? This video shows connecting the black/negative first, followed by the red/positive to the battery last, which seems to make sense. However, in many other videos they seem to do the opposite order. Or does it not matter ?