It’s usually something like a cold, wintry morning when your car battery decides to quit. You try and try to get the car started, but to no avail. You open the hood with your freezing fingers and look inside and think, “Now what?”
Well, if you have a friend, or have flagged someone down to help you, you can jump that car battery and drive it to a Utah auto repair center or parts store. Following a few simple steps, you can get the car running safely.
It is very important to first understand that the cables must be attached correctly. If you mix up the cables you can do some serious damage to both vehicles. Beyond that, it isn’t too complicated or intimidating.
With both cars turned off, look at the battery to find the positive “+” and negative “-“ sides. Some new cars have a red cover over the positive side. Attach the red cable to the positive side of the battery in your friend’s car. Now take the other end of the red cable and attach it to the positive side of your dead battery. Positive to positive is the rule. Now move on to the black cable.
Hook one end of the black cable to the negative side of the good battery. Take the opposite end and attach it to some unpainted metal on the dead car. This is for grounding purposes. It never hurts to double check your work: Positive to positive and negative to ground.
Now, turn on the car with the good battery. Let it run a minute, before you attempt to start the other car. This will allow a little extra charge to build up in the dead battery. Once you have the car running again, it is recommended that you drive straight to somewhere you can have that battery checked. A final note: When disconnecting the cables, be sure to prevent the ends of the cables from touching each other when one end is still attached to a battery. Good luck!
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