How to jump start a car

by Bradley Wint on August 13th, 2009 at 10:00 am

Knowing how to jump start a car should be part of any driver’s everyday knowledge. You never know the day when your car shuts down in the middle of nowhere and the only person who stops to assist you has no clue either as to how to put some juice in your cells to get you to a service shop.

Jump starting sounds easy, but there is actually a specific order in which you have to do it, because not following the sequence could result in car damage or you receiving a very bad shock of electricity. So let’s begin.

Pre-Checks
Batteries that are broken, leaking or frozen should never be jumped since they are likely to explode when electricity goes through it. Also, do not smoke or start a fire (match, bonfire, etc.) near the car batteries.

Requirements
All you need is a car that has is functional, as well as a jumper cable.

Procedure
Since the jumper cable is usually very short, bring to two cars as close as possible so the cable ends can be attached to the battery poles. The most effective way would be the park the cars with their front bumpers facing each other (to cut down on as much space as possible.

Turn the ignition key to the off position in both cars and then pop open the hoods.

Look for the batteries and identify the positive and negative terminals. The positives have a plus sign (+) and sometimes have a red cover and the negative has a minus (-) sign and sometimes a black cover. In some cars like BMWs, the battery is located at the back, but the positive terminal (for charging other cars only) is located at the front in the engine with the (+) labeled. If there is any confusion, check with the owner’s manual for further details.

The following steps must be followed in exact order:

1. Connect one of the red clamp ends on the jumper cable to the positive terminal of the dead car battery.
2. Connect the other red clamp end to the positive terminal of the working car battery.
3. Connect the black clamp end to the negative terminal of the working car battery (the one next to the red clamp connected to the working car).
4. Connect the remaining black clamp end (the one next to the red clamp connected to the dead car) to a metal surface on the car’s engine to ground the circuit. Attach it to a nice shiny, not-painted surface, because if there happens to be a spark, it would blacken it if it were painted.

Also note that you should get as much of the metal part of the clamp touching the metal terminals for best power transfer. Using a good cable is another thing you should note, because charging with a girly cable would result in a poor power transfer.

Now the actual start-up procedure can be done in a number of different ways, but we will describe the most common method. First of all, with the cables connected, start the working car and leave it running for about 5 minutes. Then go to your dead car and start it. If it starts, turn off all the unnecessary power consuming devices in the dead car like the air-condition, radio, headlights and so on. If your dead car doesn’t start the first time, wait for one minute intervals to try re-cracking, because over-starting could drain the life of the working car and even damage some of the electrical components in it.

If you get the car to start successfully, you can now proceed to remove the cables. You must remove them in the reverse order that you put them in.

1. Remove the black clamp connected to the once dead car’s metallic part.
2. Remove the black clamp from the car that was initially working.
3. Remove the red clamp from the car that was initially working.
4. Remove the read clamp from the car that was once dead.

Leave the recharged car to run for a few minutes. After that, test the car to see if the charging system is working properly by shutting it down and restarting without using the jumper cables. If it does, then head straight to the service station to check the status of the battery. If it can’t start on its own or if you see the lights in the car getting dim when the engine is not being revved, get the mechanics to change the battery or check the charging system to see if there is a fault.

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