How to Jumpstart a Vehicle
A jumpstart is a procedure that involves starting a vehicle with a dead battery. Some of the things that can diminish your vehicle’s battery are not closing the doors properly, not fully turning off your vehicle, and leaving your inner light on for too long.
Diminished batteries happen randomly so every car owner must understand the basics of jumpstarting a vehicle. The three things you need to jumpstart a car are a jumper cable, a pair of gloves, and another vehicle. Once you secure these, follow these steps:
- Park the two cars next to one another, close enough for the jumpstart cable can reach their respective batteries.
- Find the positive and negative terminals of the batteries of both cars. They are labeled (+) and (-)
- Put one red clip of the jumper cables on the positive terminal of the diminished battery.
- Put the second red clip on the positive terminal of the functioning battery.
- Connect the black clip of the jumper cable to the negative terminal of the functioning battery’s car.
- Connect the second black clip to any clean metal surface.
To complete the jumpstart process, start the vehicle with the functioning battery, and let it run for ten minutes to charge the dead battery. Accelerating the vehicle with the functioning vehicle softly also helps charge the dead battery better.
Once this is done, turn off the vehicle with the functioning battery, and remove the jumpstart cable in reverse. However, ensure the cables don’t touch each other so they don’t spark.
Start the vehicle with the dead battery and drive it around for about 10 minutes. If the issue with the battery persists, call your mechanic to check it out immediately.
You just might need a new battery.
