I have an 04 Odyssey and I had a starting issue. This morning, I drove the car to the store and came back. No issues. In the afternoon, I starting the car and drove it down the street and came to a stop sign and car stopped. It just died there. Turned the key and dashboard lights came on but the car wouldn't start. Turned the key to off and repeated while pressing on the gas. Nothing. I moved the car to the side of the road and it sat there for several hours.

Late afternoon comes and I was going to try and jump it but I decided to try to start the car and it started. Weird. I drove it home.

I have two questions.

1. Is it the battery? There is some white stuff at the base of the negative terminal. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

2. What is the proper jumper cable order?

In #2, I think it is in this order?

Red-----Dead +
Red----Donor +
Black---Donor -
Black---Bare Metal (Where in the picture do I connect it)

Once the Donor car is on and hopefully the dead car starts I think I reverse the order when disconnecting the cables.

 

Did the engine crank when tried to restart the engine?

At this point, all we know is that it died and didn't start back up
Take a multi-meter and measure the volt across the battery post
Should be 12.5 volts or better. Lower voltage would indicate a weak battery or charging system
Turn engine on. Measure the voltage across battery. Honda uses smart charging.
So, with no load, the voltage could be 12.5 to 13 volts.
Turn on head lights and check voltage again should be 13 to 14.5 volts
Note: you can do voltage drop testing. Meter probes near adjacent.
For example, black lead on battery post and red lead on cable terminal.
If there is voltage reading >1 volt then corrosion is causing high resistance.
And this is done at all terminals and connections (grounds)

Seeing all that corrosion on or near the battery, would clean up battery posts
And clean up the cable terminals with metal brush. Then follow negative cable
To chassis ground and clean that up. That should get rid of most of the corrosion.
Last is to find the engine ground strap and clean those points up.

That is all that can be for now since the problem is not a hard failure.
If it fails hard then we can go on to more testing to find cause.