The RIGHT Way To Jump Start Your Car
Posted March 11, 2014 by Ken Kupchik
You will almost certainly need to jump start a car some day. You will almost certainly get confused about the steps. Here they are!
1) Try to put both vehicles nose-to-nose so that there you can extend the jumper cables from one car to the other.
2) Make sure that both vehicles are OFF and in park.
3) Open the hood of each vehicle and find where the respective battery is. On each battery, find the + positive and -negative terminals. The +positive will be RED and the -negative will be BLACK.
4) Attach the clamp of the cable to the +positive (RED) terminal of the DEAD battery. The cables will either be color coded with +red and -black or have a stripe to indicate which is which. Use the indicators appropriately.
CAUTION: DO NOT TOUCH THE METAL CLAMPS OF THE JUMPER CABLES TO EACH OTHER OR ANY PART OF YOUR CAR EXCEPT FOR THE BATTERY TERMINALS.
5) Attach the other clamp of the +positive (RED) cable to the +positive (RED) terminal of the good battery.
6) Attached the -negative (BLACK) clamp to the -negative (BLACK) terminal of the dead battery.
CAUTION: DO NOT TOUCH THE REMAINING -NEGATIVE (BLACK) CLAMP TO YOURSELF AS THE CABLES ARE NOW LIVE
7) Attach the remaining -negative (BLACK) clamp to any metal section of the car, away from any moving parts.
8) Once all of the cables are firmly secured, start up the car with the good battery. Allow it to run for several minutes.
9) Start the engine of the dead car. Do not attempt to start it multiple times if you've followed the procedures correctly as this could be an issue unrelated to a dead battery.
10) Leave the car with the dead battery running as you disconnect the cables rather than turning it off as the battery may still require charging. Carefully remove the -negative (BLACK) clamp from the terminal of the dead battery, followed by the +positive (RED) of the same, without allowing any of the clamps to touch. Follow the same steps on the car with the good battery.
