I want to show you a safe way to go about jump-starting a car with a dead
battery. First, we're going to position and prepare the vehicles. Park the
vehicle with the good battery close to the disabled vehicle, about 18 inches
apart is good. That gives you enough room to work between the vehicles. The
vehicles aren't touching, but they're close enough that the cables can reach
from one battery to the next. Now we're going to get in each vehicle and do a
few things to prepare them for the jump-starting process. And you're gonna
do these same things to both vehicles. If the vehicle is an automatic, make sure
the gear selector shift lever is in park. If one of the vehicles happens to have a
manual transmission, put that in neutral. Then set the parking brake for each
vehicle. Next make sure that anything that's electrical in your vehicle is
turned off. Turn off the fan. Make sure the radio is off. Make sure there's no
overhead lights on. Make sure your headlights are off. If you
have anything plugged into a power outlet, such as a charger, unplug that. We
want to make sure that as much electricity as possible is going from
the good battery to the bad battery and that no other device is trying to use
that electricity. And lastly, take the keys out of the ignition and set them
aside. So both cars are ready to go now. Get your cables out and stretch them out.
And at all times, when you're working with these jumper cables, make sure that
none of the clamps touch each other during the process of hooking them up.
You don't want any sparks or shorts to happen hooking up the cables. Almost
every set of jumper cables will be color-coded. The red clamps are for the
positive terminals on your battery, and the black clamps are for the negative
terminals on the batteries. Before we hook any of these clamps up, let's figure
out where we're gonna go with them. Locate the battery in each vehicle and
find the positive and negative terminals. They should be marked in different ways.
There should be a red cover or coating around the wire for the positive
terminal, as well as the positive symbol. And it should be a black wire and a
negative symbol going to the negative terminal. Sometimes you'll find vehicles
that don't have a post right on the battery. They'll have a
connection off to the side that indicates that you should hook up one of the
cables there. So look for that, or look in your owner's manual to tell you how you
should jumpstart your vehicle. And this is the battery in the disabled vehicle.
It actually has a cover over it, and you'll find that in some vehicles. So you
have to remove that cover. It's usually pretty easy to move. It snaps off. And
here's the bad battery. And it is marked in red. There's a red wire and a positive
symbol. And there's a black wire and a negative symbol. We're ready now to start
hooking up the cables. And we're going to start and end with the disabled vehicle.
We're going to connect the positive clamps first and then the negative
clamps. Grab the red positive clamp and attach it to the positive terminal on
the bad battery. You can attach it right at the middle on these clamps, but I
think I can get a good grip there right in the middle. So I'm gonna put it there.
And for now I'm just gonna rest that negative clamp along the wire of that
positive one that I just attached to the bad battery. Got the first one attached.
Next, grab the other end of that red wire and attach it to the positive terminal
on the car with the good battery. We're gonna remove that cover to expose the
terminal and then attach the clamp over here. So, we've got a good connection
there. Next, take the black negative clamp that's on the same end as that red one
you just attached, and attached it to the negative terminal on the good battery. So
that just leaves us with this negative clamp to put on the disabled vehicle. You
do not want to put it on the negative terminal of the bad battery. There's no
electricity flowing from the good battery to the bad battery yet, but if
you connect this to the negative terminal on the bad battery there could
be a spark. There's a very, very remote danger of that igniting some hydrogen
gas that can form around the battery. We're trying to do it the very safest
way, so even though that chance is very very slim, we don't want to chance it! So we're
gonna be safe. So what you want to do is connect this negative clamp to a piece
of bare, unpainted metal, under the hood of the disabled vehicle. So you're
looking for a piece of metal. It could be a bare bolt sticking up. It could be a
metal support under the hood. But you want to make sure it's not near
any moving parts. No belts. no fans that it's gonna hit when you turn on the
engine. So I'm going to attach it to this bare metal section along the side of the
hood of the car. So now our connections are complete. And you can see, we kind of
went in a circle. We started with the bad battery, positive terminal; turned around,
went to the good battery, positive terminal; went to the good battery,
negative terminal; turned back around to the disabled vehicle, and put the
negative black clamp on a section of unpainted metal. So now we're gonna get
in the vehicle with the good battery. Put the key in the ignition, start it up, and
then let the car run for at least a couple of minutes. If it's really cold
weather, you might even want to let it run longer. Cold weather really does a
number on car batteries. What you're doing right now is sending electricity
to the bad battery. We're actually kind of charging it, so that can take a little
bit. You want it to get a little bit of charge in there before you actually try
to start the disabled vehicle. After you've let the other car run for a while,
get in the disabled vehicle, put in the keys, and try to start it. Okay, here goes.
Hoping for the best. We've got electricity; that's a good sound! Hey, it
worked! Alright - success! And if the vehicle
starts, remove the jumper cables in reverse order of what you put them on.
Let it run for at least 15 minutes. 15 to 30. You can drive it
around during that time to get that battery charged up even more. If the
other vehicle doesn't start the first time, get out of that vehicle and check
the connections under the hood. Make sure everything's tight. Let the car with the
good battery run longer. Get more charge in there, and then try again.
If the disabled car doesn't start after two or three tries, you may have bigger
problems than just a bad battery. And sorry to say, you may have to get it
towed to a shop to have it looked at. My only other advice would be to always
have jumper cables in your car, in your vehicle. In every vehicle you have. The
jumper cables come in different gauges. The lower the gauge, the better. The lower
the gauge, the thicker the wire. Also, the lower the gauge, the more the jumper
cables will cost. But they will do a better job. For me, I like the longer ones.
Mine are 20 feet long. You can get them in all sorts of lengths: eight, ten, twelve feet.
But these allow you to reach more difficult spots. Portable
jump starters are also a great idea to have. They're perfect for when your
battery dies and there's no other vehicle around to jump your vehicle. So
follow these steps, and you'll have an easy, safe way to jump start any vehicle.