Every driver gets stuck with a drained battery at some point or another. The only thing worse than needing to jump-start your engine is not knowing how when you need to. Fortunately, car manufacturers try to make jumping a car easy. Unless your car is a model that requires more maintenance, jumping a vehicle is no more difficult than filling it with gasoline. As long as you keep your car prepared with the necessary equipment, you should have no problem starting the engine when the battery dies.
Equipment for Jumping a Vehicle
There are only two pieces of gear you need to jump-start a car:
- Jumper cables
- Live battery (either a jump box or another car)
Drivers would benefit from keeping jumper cables in the trunk. Consider it an essential along with extra motor oil and your tire change kit. Jumper cables are long, thick cables with alligator clips on the ends. These are perfect for linking two batteries together. Typically, one cable will be red, and one will be black. These colors help you remember where to attach them.
The live battery can be one of two things. Often, people jump-start their motor with another car. If you have a friend, neighbor, or family member around, this can be fairly easy. However, you can carry around a portable jump box, which can start a battery on its own. Tow truck drivers use these. The main issue with relying on a jump box is that you need to keep it charged as well. Like your car battery, it will slowly drain when it is just sitting around. Since you hopefully won’t need to jump your car often, this might not be a great option.
Some Precautions Before Jump-starting a Car
Before getting started, look over your car manual to make sure there is not anything specific about your car’s electronics. Once you have done this, check the battery for corrosion, dirt, and other damage. Also, make sure that your jumper cables have no damage in any way, and make sure their clips are not touching before you start. Also, ensure the two batteries have the same voltage (6V, 12V, or other)
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Steps for Jumping
Follow these simple steps to jump your car (the order is important):
- Turn both cars off and engage the parking brake. Pop the hoods.
- Clip the red cable to the positive terminal on the dead
- Clip the other end of red to the positive terminal on the live
- Clip the black cable to the negative terminal on the live
- Finally, clip the other end of the black to a grounding source. Good grounding sources are unpainted metal parts of the dead car that are not near the battery.
- Turn the live car on and let it idle for a few minutes. When the lights of the dead car turn on, check the ignition to see if you successfully jump-started it.
If you follow the above steps and the car does not work, there may be underlying issues. Even if you get the car on, you will still want a professional to check why it lost power. Bring it by Thomasville Ford in Thomasville, Georgia, to get it looked at in our on-site automotive service center.
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