How to jump start a car with cables safely and correctly on any car. This is the the right way to jump-start a car.
The correct ways to hook up jumper cables on a car with a dead battery that won’t start.
I did a few mistakes in the video bellow, can you find the mistakes.
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Jumper cables Jump starter battery booster
How to jump start the car
This can also be done with a battery jump start pack designed to start a car with a dead battery without the need for another car to give power from a good car battery.
The jumper cables must be good thick copper high quality to avoid damage during high power transfer from the good battery to the bad battery.
Safety First
Bad car is the car with the dead battery and the good car is the car used to jump-start the bad car.
The good car might have a good battery or it might also have an old weak battery.
Doing this the wrong way might make the good car not start also.
Bring the good car in front of the bad car facing eachother without touching.
if the bad car is facing a wall, you can try to park the good car next to the bad car or push the bad car out of the parking spot by hand and turning the steering wheel carefully.
Make sure both cars are in a safe area where no other cars can collide.
If you are on the road, pull to the emergency lane or to the outer area of the road and use a car break-down reflective triangle when there is incomming traffic. Hazard lights on the bad car might work so use them even if the battery is depleted to start, it will be good enough for hazard lights.
After you setup a refletive triange far back enough from the bad car, you can turn off the hazard lights if waiting a long time for road assistange but best is to keep the hazard lights on all the time if you are on the road and cars are passing by.
The area around the cars has to be free of debris or other wires or cables.
Preparation
Use thick solid copper jumper cables only. Not the thin ones that can get hot or even melt.
Separate the jumper cable terminals. make sure no jumper wires aligator clips are touching eachother or any part of the car.
Lay the cables on the ground disconnected from the cars but ready to be picked-up and use.
Make sure the jumper cables are long enough to reach both cars.
On both cars, open the engine bonnet or hood. Usually under the steering wheel there is a pull lever to open the engine bay area.
On both cars automatic transmission must be set to Park and manual transmission should be set to neutral.
Both cars should have the engine turned off.
Connect Jumper Cables
Folow the steps bellow to connect the jumpber cables correctly and safely.
Step 1 Red on dead battery positive +
Connect the red jumper cable to the Positive + battery terminal of the dead car battery. The positive battery terminal is usually covered by a red plastic protective cover.
Make sure you know for sure which battery terminal is the positive one. Positive is marked with the + plus sign or it has a red cover or both.
Step 2 Red on good car battery positive +
Connect the other end of the red cable to the good booster car’s battery positive terminal + same as above, it’s marked with + for positive or it has a red or any color plastic cover.
Step 3 Black on good car battery negative –
Do not allow red and black jumper cable ends to touch eachother at any time. Keep jumper cable aligator clips away from eachother.
Attach one side of the black jumper cable to the good car’s – Negative battery terminal.
Step 4 Black on dead car ground point negative –
Connect the other end of the black jumper cable to the dead car’s chassy on a good grounding point. Usually around the engine there are good solid metal grounding points. Secure the alligator clip to the ground poing in one quick movement without moving the cable or the aligator clip around too much to avoid sparks.
You can alternatively connect the black to the Negative – end of the dead battery directly but this can be dangerous as a depleted lead-acid car battery may release hydrogen gas and if there is a spark when connecting the jumper cable, the Hydrogen gas may ignite.
Solid ground point is safer, make sure it’s around the engine and it’s connected to the chassy directly and not with a thin wire.
Using a thin ground connection may melt the ground cable and run the car.
Step 5 Start good car
Start the engine of the donor car or booster car. This is the car with the good battery.
Once started let the booster good car run in idle for 1-5 minutes depending on how bad the bad car’s battery is depleted.
Step 6 Start the bad car
While the cables are connected and the good car engine is running in idle, try to start the bad car.
If the bad car will not start, let the good car engine run for a few minutes longer and try again.
Once the bad car is started, let both cars engines run in idle for 1-2 minutes more with the cables connected.
Step 7 Stop engine of good car
Now you can stop the engine of the good car while cables are connected and the bad car engine is running.
Step 8 disconnect cables in reversed order
Disconnect jumper cables from both cars in reversed order.
Make sure you do not touch the red and black ends of the cables while they are still connected to any of the cars.
Disconnecte cables:
- Remove black cable from bad car.
- Remove black cable from good car.
- Remove red cable from good car.
- Remove red cable from bad car.
Once the bad battery car is started, don’t stop the engine until you reach home or a car service shop to get your battery replaced as soon as possible.
Let me know if you want to see a video about how to replace the battery in your car.
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