How to Jump Start Your Vehicle

Written by: Joe McCann

Cold weather can be tough on a number of different things, people’s joints, the bug population, but one thing most people don’t think about, before its to late, is their cars battery. Having a pair of jumper cables in your car at all times is a great way to help prevent any unwanted extended stays at work or the grocery store. I know most people claim to know how to jump start a car, after all it certainly isn’t rocket science. However ever Winter we see dozens of cars towed in, only after the owner claimed the battery wouldn’t take a jump. So here is a quick reminder on the steps to jump starting your car and also hopefully some helpful hints.

1. The first thing you should do is to make sure the battery isn’t frozen. If your able to see the battery in your vehicle. Make sure the sides of the case aren’t frosted over, it will also be extremely cold to the touch. You’ll also want to make sure the outside of the case isn’t bulged out. If this is the case, you’ll want to just remove the battery, and replace it.
2. If the battery isn’t frozen you’ll want to start out by first finding a willing good Samaritan to help get your car started.
3. Then after you’ve opened both hoods and removed the jumper cables from the trunk you can get started.
4. Put the red cable onto the positive battery terminal of the dead vehicle, and then the black cable onto the negative battery terminal. Car batteries almost always have a + and a – to help distinguish which is positive and which is negative.
5. Being extremely careful not to let the other ends touch one another, repeat that step on the vehicle that is running. Always remember to never let the red cable touch the black cable. This will cause a short to ground and end up blowing one of the large MAXI fuses in one of the cars or even fry one of the control modules.
6. Once all the cables have been attached on the two batteries its time to try and start the dead vehicle. If your car fails to start to worry. The biggest problem we see when jump starting a car is people don’t get a proper connection between the 4 terminals on the batteries. Get back out and give each one of the clips a little shake, if the cables aren’t getting a good connection at the batteries, the dead vehicle won’t get a good charge from the car that’s running.
7. Depending on how run down your battery is, it might take several minutes of charging in order to let your battery get enough power to start the vehicle.
8. Finally, after all that you get the vehicle started. The final step is to remove the jumper cables. You should use the same amount of care removing the cables as you did when clipping them on. Again, always remember to never allow the two cables to touch one another.