How To Jump Start Your Car

We have all had mornings where we wake up and things just don’t want to go our way; our coffee might not be strong enough, we have a bad hair day, or our car might not start when we need it most.

A dead battery doesn’t have to ruin your day. In fact, it’s easy to fix, as long as you have a set of jumper cables and a running car nearby.

If your car isn’t starting because the batteries dead, below are the steps you need to take to jump start your car and get on with your day!

How to Jump Start Your Car

1. 1. Knock on your neighbor’s door or call a friend. Anyone with a car and jumper cables will be of help. It is always smart to keep a spare pair of jumper cables in the back of the car in case you can’t find a friend and need to ask a random stranger for help who might not have jumper cables.

Once the car arrives, face the cars together, headlights to headlight, or very close together, side by side. Make sure the two cars are not touching! Both of the cars need to be in park and the keys need to be out of the ignition for your safety.

1. Identify on the car battery that the red cable is positive and the black cable is negative.While most cars are easily identifiable by the color coding, some cars may not be, so be sure to verify there are positive (+) and negative (-) markings on the battery. The jump will not work and may damage your vehicle if you cannot identify the correct terminals.
2. Attach one of the red cable clips to the positive (red) terminal of your car, then proceed to attach the other red cable to the positive (red) terminal of the working car. You want to make sure you get a good grip between the terminal and the cable in order for it to efficiently work.
3. Attach the black cable clip to the negative (black) terminal of the working car, then attach the last black cable clip to any metal surface in the dead battery car that is away from the battery.A good grip is necessary between the terminal and cable for this procedure as well. Making sure the last black cable clip is gripped on a piece of metal instead of the other terminal is vital for the success of the jump start.
4. Turn on the working car and let it run for roughly 2 minutes.The engine of the working car needs to run for a couple minutes in order to charge the other engine. Once it has run for a couple minutes or so, you can start your car and it should turn right on! If your car does not turn on immediately, then turn off your car and let the other car run for a couple more minutes. If after this it still does not turn on, your battery might be permanently dead.
5. Make sure when taking off these terminals, that you remove the terminals from your car battery first. Remove the negative terminal (black) from the piece of metal it’s attached to and then remove the positive (red) terminal after. Do not let the ends of these cables touch!

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