Frank Black / 24 June 2025 / Categories: Useful Guides

Ford Zetec Battery where is the negative terminal for a jump start

Struggled to get the bonnet open too

Thought I’d drop a snoop about using a Ford zetec for a jump start from a kind stranger who’d never lifted the bonnet. The hood before.

First off the bonnet catch inside the car is on the passenger side of a ford Zetec. And when you come to lift the bonnet there is a yellow lever just to the left of centre of the bonnet you pull towards you to pop the hood.

It took us a good 5-10 minutes to find this too, you can run your hands quite deep under the hood. And find nothing. Like I say the lever is close to the edge of the opening just left of centre. And on this particular vehicle it was bright yellow although don’t know if that’s common to all.

Now the battery is in the usual place top right as you look at the engine. It’s covered with two plastic pieces that clip together, one at the back and one at the front of the battery.

The red positive terminal is immediately visible so no problems there but it took about thirty minutes, lots of google searches and watching a few you tube videos, none of which helped us to find the negative which had no label or negative sign on it.

First off it’s not on the battery like the batteries on older vehicles.

On the Ford Zetec battery you’ll see a pretty thick black cable, about a centimetre in diameter running across the front of the battery, you can see it in the image, One side at least. The part out of shot to the right it’s bolted to a metal casing attached to the body work of the vehicle. This is the negative terminal and I found it completely by chance when I read an AI overview about negative terminals being earthed on metal on the body work of the car. I didn’t get the full image of exactly where it was but follow the black cable on the image along the front of the battery and where it connects that is the negative terminal.

It was by chance when I connected the black jumper cable here, I got my car started.

Whenever I need to figure something out like this You Tube is where I usually go. I will say the three or videos I watched when putting in Google “where is the negative terminal on a Ford Zetec Varta Battery” returned didn’t tell me what I needed.

Why I decided to write this if someone else ever has the same experience.