Whether you’ve left the lights on or your battery is old, it doesn’t matter what it was that caused your battery to die as all that matters is getting it back up and running again.
If this ever happens to you, you’ll want to know how to jump-start your car safely and we’re here to help you do just that.
Before we get started, this is just a brief rundown of what you’ll need:
- Two jump leads – a black ‘negative’ one and a red ‘positive’ one
- Another car that has a charged battery
- A pair of gloves and some goggles
1. Locate your battery
Firstly, you want to park up the car that has a flat battery facing the car that has the fully charged battery, ensuring that you leave enough space in between so that you can get in to locate the battery.
2. Get your safety gear on
Once you’ve done this, pop your gloves and goggles on. You’ll then be all geared up to pop open the bonnets and connect your jump leads to each battery.
3. Attach your leads
Begin by attaching the red ‘positive’ lead to the positive battery terminal on the car that has the fully charged battery. This will be marked with a plus (+) sign. Then you’ll want to connect the other end of the red lead to the positive terminal on the flat battery.
Once the red leads are connected, you’ll then be ready to grab the black ‘negative’ one and connect this to the negative terminal that will be marked with a minus (-) sign, on the car with the charged battery.
The next bit is very important. DO NOT attach the other end of the negative terminal on the dead battery. What you want to do instead is clip this onto a piece of solid metal (away from the fuel and battery of course).
4. Ready…set…go!
After you’ve got everything attached where it needs to be, you’re good to go. All you need to do now is start the engine of the car with the charged battery and let it run for a minute or so.
While that is running, head over to the car with the flat battery and have a go at starting the engine. It’s worth noting that if the car doesn’t start within approximately 5 minutes, then it might be best just waiting a couple of minutes then trying again.
If you’ve done that and it still doesn’t start, double-check that all your leads are attached and in the right place and if that doesn’t work, then you might just have to accept the fact that the battery is beyond help and will need replacing.
4. Leave your engine on
If you’re successfully able to get the car with the flat battery running, fantastic! If you’ve got to this point then just leave both car engines for 5 minutes or so.
It’s at this point that you’ll then be ready to remove the leads, but just in reverse order this time. So you’ll want to start by removing the black lead before the red.
Then you’ll be ready to take your car for a spin and make use of having a battery that is now charged!
However, if your battery is completely flat and you’ve tried everything to get it to work but it’s just having none of it then it could just be time to say goodbye.
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