How To Jump Start A Car!
It’s bound to happen one day if you drive a car. You get in and try and start the car, but it won’t start. Here’s a simple guide that will safely walk you through the steps to jump start a car.
- To make the situation easier on yourself, position both cars so that the batteries are close together. This will allow you to manipulate the jumper cables with ease.
- Now it’s time to connect the jumper cables. The car that is giving you a jump can be running or turned off — either way works.
- Clamp the red/positive cable to the positive pole of the dead battery.
- Connect the other end of the red/positive cable to the positive pole of the charged battery.
- Connect the black/negative cable to the negative pole of the charged battery.
- Connect the black/negative cable to a metal surface around the engine. Make sure there is no paint on the metal.
- If the car with the live battery isn’t on, go ahead and start the car. Assuming all the cables are hooked up properly, the car’s battery is being charged. Wait a couple minute and try and start your car.
- Now that both cars are running, it’s time to disconnect the jumper cables. Remove the cables in the reverse order.
- Disconnect the black/negative cable from the metal surface around the engine.
- Disconnect the black/negative cable from the negative pole of the donor car’s battery that you used to jump the dead one.
- Disconnect the red/positive cable from the positive pole of the donor car’s charged battery.
- Disconnect the red/positive cable from the positive pole of the previously-dead battery.
A few months ago when I was jumping a car, I noticed the lady would back away from the cars while I attached the cables. She was probably worried I would blow something up. We don’t want batteries blowing up so here are some additional tips for when you have to jump a car.
The “explosion” problem can occur when the cables/terminals emit a spark. When you are hooking up the jumper cables, the last connection is the one that has a chance of making sparks. Usually you won’t see sparks flying, but in the off chance it happens you will be fine because you are connecting the last cable to a metal part away from the car battery. When you take off the jumper cables, the spark would come when you disconnect the first cable. This is why you detach the cable that is connected to the metal around your engine first.
Sometimes the car giving the jump will drain enough of the battery that it won’t be able to start. In order to avoid this predicament the donor car should be driven for a few minutes.
It’s a good idea to clean the battery terminals. IF you don’t clean them, a lot of corrosion will build up which makes the connection between a battery and the jumpers weaker.
You should also drive the car that was jumped to give the battery time to recover as well.
If a 2nd car isn’t available, you can still get juice flowing to the battery with a jump starter