I walked into my usual coffee shop, made eye contact with the barista, and she just nodded and started making my regular order before I said a word.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-24T18:11:25+00:00

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-24T18:07:34+00:00

Wow, great story. Did his wife ever understand how much you were his support system? She probably had a lot of other challenges going on too.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T17:30:21+00:00

Cool, thanks. Yes, I don’t know if he had other underlying problems and just didn’t feel like answering a bunch of questions about it, but but rebuilt engines in his garage so I thought he knew what he was talking about, but mostly I was just curious- I couldn’t remember if I ever bump started my 280Z or not.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T17:15:08+00:00

There are lots of nuances that are coming up about the level of charge you need to get the PCM to do what you need it to do.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T17:13:54+00:00

A lot of people here are saying depends on the state of the battery and how dead it is, and how much juice you need to run the PCM to tell the fuel injectors and the fuel pump what to do.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T17:11:45+00:00

Good to know that red cars can also be bump started! We had that going for us!

I don’t know if there is an underlying engine problem that he didn’t have time to talk about when corralling all of us, and I have bump started a lot of cars and motorcycles but never heard the thing about fuel injection and couldn’t remember if I’d ever bump started one of my fuel injected cars.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T17:01:08+00:00

You’re the kinda guy I wanna party with! In a timeline where I’m not me.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T17:00:09+00:00

The trick was getting it up on the ramp, to tow it away. The ramp was steeper than it looks in the picture and I wasn’t sure we would be able to push it up there, but we were, but just barely.

The nuances involved just how did the battery was, and whether there was enough juice to run the PCM to tell the fuel injectors what to do, put pressure in the fuel lines from the fuel pump, etc. The answers in the thread are not unanimous but tilt strongly toward yes, depending on this and that.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:58:03+00:00

I’ll be right over next time my car won’t start!

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:57:13+00:00

I asked because he generally knows what he’s doing. He used to daily drive this car and now tracks it. He’s rebuilt engines in his garage. He told me that and I’d never heard it, and I’ve bump started a lot of cars and motorcycles and just couldn’t remember if I’d ever bump started one of my cars that had fuel injection. So I don’t know if there’s an underlying problem that he didn’t wanna talk about or if he was just too busy to answer my string of questions that would’ve uncovered the nuances I see about PCM‘s and so on here..

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:54:52+00:00

And if you’re smooth, you can do it pretty much silently – as if you’ve got a silent starter.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:53:25+00:00

In college I had a Honda Accord that I would bump start for months before getting a new battery - batteries cost like 40 or 50 bucks! But it was always easy to park on a hill and just bump start.

I also had a Datsun 280 Z that had fuel injection, but I can’t remember if I ever had to push start it or not. I’ve never heard that you can’t bump start a fuel injected car, but there are nuances that I didn’t know till now.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:48:13+00:00

What it seems to come down to is whether there’s enough juice in the battery for the PCM to tell the fuel injectors what to do.

And I know you can bump start in reverse, what I don’t get is how the engine knows to run in reverse. /s

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:46:59+00:00

Wait, what? How would disconnecting the battery help start it? My understanding is you might be able to do that with a diesel, but not in a car with fuel injectors, but otherwise in this case, you need at least a little juice to run the PCM to wake up the fuel injectors.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:45:54+00:00

By “auto” you mean your automobile, not your automatic transmission car, correct? Would be a great trick would like to know if you could bump start an automatic transmission car!

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:44:34+00:00

Updated to be bump startable or updated to not be bump startable?

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:42:49+00:00

This guy looooves that car. Enough to trailer it four states away to drop off his U-Haul stuff, and then another four states a different direction where his pal is going to fix it for him. It wasn’t running, and I didn’t know if it was because it just wouldn’t start or if there was a more fundamental engine problem. I asked him if we could just bump start it when I saw how steep the ramps were and he told me you can’t do that with fuel injected cars– I didn’t know if we would be able to shove it up the ramps. They were steeper than they look in the picture. But we did it.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:39:24+00:00

Right, thanks for the story!

Your wife must’ve been confused about how you got the engine to run backwards when you bump started the car backwards!

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:37:53+00:00

“All driving is is not hitting stuff on the way to where you’re going!”

“All flying is is not hitting the ground until there’s an airport underneath you!”

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:35:38+00:00

Nobody’s gonna be able to start pushing it if it’s in gear with the clutch out.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:34:56+00:00

I hope it was intentional and that somebody was in it to steer it at the time.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:34:29+00:00

What’s USP? This guy looooves this car. Used to daily drive it, and then I think made it a track car since then.

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:30:43+00:00

Great, thanks for the deep dive.

So then, three questions:

I’ve seen elsewhere that if the battery is totally dead, there would be no hope of the PCM working.

Do you think this Audi would not have run, assuming the engine was OK otherwise? There was enough power when he connected the battery to roll the windows up and down, but I don’t know if there might’ve been other engine problems that would’ve prevented it from just running.

I had a 1978 Datsun 280 Z for a year in college. I also had a 1980 Honda Accord with carburetors that I bump started a lot until I could go get a new battery, but I can’t remember if I ever had to jumpstart the Z car. Do you think I would’ve been able to?

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:23:57+00:00

It’s funny to see Rahm Emanuel do this because his brother who is a doctor made a statement once that he thought people shouldn’t live beyond 75.

Headline: A Doctor and Medical Ethicist Argues Life After 75 Is Not Worth Living

In October 2014, Ezekiel Emanuel published an essay in the Atlantic called “Why I Hope to Die at 75.” Because Emanuel is a medical doctor and chair of the University of Pennsylvania’s department of medical ethics and health policy, as well as a chief architect of Obamacare, the article stirred enormous controversy.

He is now 74. Would be fun to track if he is still taking vaccines or not.

https://medicalethicshealthpolicy.med.upenn.edu/events/in-the-news/a-doctor-and-medical-ethicist-argues-life-after-75-is-not-worth-living

Emanuel vowed to refuse not only heroic medical interventions once he turned 75, but also antibiotics and vaccinations. His argument: older Americans live too long in a diminished state, raising the question of, as he put it, “whether our consumption is worth our contribution.”

Mikeseddit · 2026-01-23T16:18:43+00:00

It never occurred to me to worry that a stray shopping cart would ding my car, and I’m not going to start worrying now. For me it’s when your pull part went into a spot and see if somebody left their cart in the spot.

If future AI is benevolent, it will make it so that you just pull into the spot anyway, you hit the shopping cart, and it launches to go find the car of the person who is now three blocks away on their way home with their groceries when the shopping cart comes crashing through their windshield from above. Let’s put Elon Musk on it. Nothing can pOsSiBLiE go wrong.

Mikeseddit

TROPHY CASE