I had drive the car a short distance and shut it off. when i restarted it a few minutes later it fired up and then died.

There was a flashing green key symbol on the dash but all the lights were flashing so I'm not sure that was unique.

I restarted the car with the valet key and it seemed to sputter a bit before coming to life.

It's seems to fine now.

I used the carto jumpstart my truck yesterday, i may have strained the 12 volt battery but this all happened after a 25 miles drive which should have topped the 12v batt off pretty well.

 

Your starter battery is very small and won't take much abuse, like starting a truck. A weak 12v battery will cause all kinds of strange things to happen.
It will probably be ok once it is recharged properly.
GL

 

Turns out ot was nothing. I am using a small lawn tractor battery ($36). It's been working great for a year but the connection had to be modified and that what was causing my problem.- the car would start and then the vibration would break the battery connection and the car would freak out and die.

I tightened the connection and the car is fine.

Yes, you can jump a big vehicle with your HCH. In warm weather even a small battery is sufficient to turn a V8 but it's a good idea to connect the cables and let it charge for a while.

Also, when you connect the cables you will get no reaction form the engine like you do on a regular car- there is no alternator so no load on the engine when the dead batttery is attached.

 

Using another car with jumper cables is generally frowned upon especially with a hybrid or any late model car. Use a portable battery starter/charger next time. You're placing an abnormally large electrical demand on a car's battery and alternator.
Once you've let a car battery go dead, you permenently lost 25% of it's life. This isn't a about math. Letting a battery go dead several times really diminishes its life.

 

By that math if you let a car battery go dead four times it would never recover?

Agreed, not a good idea to run a battery down to nothing but these things happen.

If you need to jump another car with your HCH the key is to let it charge the dead battery for a long time- like 30 minutes before attempting to start it.

If you're really paranoid you could let it charge the dead battery and disconnect the cables before starting the dead car.