Jump starting a car is required when your battery doesn’t have the juice to do so. It’s not something you want to get wrong. We recommend knowing how to jump start a car because it’s one of those things that crop up once in a blue moon.
Why would you need to jump start your car?
You’ve rolled out of bed, had your morning coffee and now it’s time to roll into work. You jump in your car and turn the key and… nothing. You’ve left your headlights on all night, and now you’ve got a dead battery.
Don’t panic, you can just jump start your car, and in 5 minutes your alternator will make this whole incident a thing of the past.
But batteries and electricity can be dangerous, really dangerous. Unless you really want to jump start your day in a Frankenstein kind of way, you need to get it right and follow some safety steps.
How do you jump start a car?
You’re going to need some jumper leads, a willing friend and their car, or a jumper pack.
Your first step is to open your bonnet and locate your battery. On the top of your battery, there will be two terminals. One with a minus sign (-) and often a black cap – this is the negative terminal. The other with a positive sign (+) and often with a red cap – this is the positive terminal. You need to find the same signs on the other car if you aren’t using a jumper pack.
Now your second step, connect the red jumper lead to the positive (+) terminal. You do this by ensuring that the crocodile clip on the jumper lead attaches directly to the bare metal on the battery terminal. Do the same for the other car. Now connect the black lead to the negative terminal (-) on your friend’s car, and the black lead to an unpainted and bare metal surface in your engine bay. Your batteries are now connected in parallel and live.
You need to start your friend’s car and once it has warmed up you need to put their transmission in neutral and raise the RPM’s to around 2500. Once their car has sat at 2500 for around 30 seconds, turn your key and your car should crank over – and ideally, spring to life.
It’s running, but now what?
Once your car has run for around 1 minute, you can remove your jumper leads. Do it in the reverse to how you put them on. Black lead off starting with your car and then red lead off starting with your car.
All that’s left for you to do is to drive your car at varying speeds for at least 10 minutes. This means moving through the rev range as you would drive normally and not turning the car off for as long as possible. This will give the battery the best chance to charge.
Your alternator will charge your battery and you should be good to go.
What if your car still doesn’t hold a charge, even after being jumpstarted?
You may be looking at needing something like a battery replacement or an alternator replacement. If you are, don’t fret we can help you take care of it.