Step1
Turn off both cars.
Step2
Find the positive battery terminal.
A battery terminal is a metal post sticking out of the battery,it might be sticking straight up or pointing sideways, it makes no difference. The positive terminal is always marked with a + sign, it may also be marked with red for example, a red plastic cover on the cables connecting to the terminal.
Step3
Clamp the red cable end to positive battery terminal. Do this for both cars.
Step4
Find the negative battery terminal. The positive terminal is always marked with a - sign, it may also be marked with black, for example, a black plastic cover on the cables connecting to the terminal.
Step5
Clamp the black cable end to negative battery terminal. Do this for both cars.
Step6
Make sure the cables have a good connection to the battery terminals or the metal cables that connect to the terminals.
Step7
Once your jumper cables are connected, start the jumper car, and run it for 5 minutes. Then, with the jumper car running, start the dead car.
Step8
The dead car should start right up. If it doesn't, here are a couple of things you can try.
Step9
Check, double check, then check again the connection between the jumper cables and the exposed metal on the battery terminals. The battery terminals connect to cables that go to the engine by way of some lead clamps(metal blocks that look like they're bolted to the battery terminals).
Any and all of those are good conductors of electricity, and can be used to connect the jumper cable clamp.
Step10
Have the jumper car rev the engine some while trying to start the dead car. Revving the engine makes the jumper car generate more electricity, which will hopefully get through to the dead car.
Step11
Inspect the battery terminal cables, the lead clamps, and all of the connections. Are they corroded and nasty and gross, or are they shiny and clean? If they're not shiny and clean, they may have lost their ability to conduct electricity. The older the car, the higher the likelyhood you'll have to clean the battery terminal connections. I won't cover it here, but it's not difficult - usually you just unbolt the lead clamps, clean everything off until the metal is shiny (cleaner tool, wirebrush, etc) and then bolt it back on.
Step12
Sometimes a battery is just drained for no good reason, and a single jump will get you back on the road again. However, in older cars, there's a chance that the battery and or alternator is failing. If your car is dead again within a week, you'll likely need to replace both.
Enthusiast
Comments
mayousef said
on 7/7/2007 on the second car which jump start is needed you shall clamp the black negative cable to the body of the car not to the battery, this will insure direct current to the starter.
punkbass25 said
on 11/9/2006 Couple things wrong with this:
1) in step 4 while talking about the negative battery post it is accidentally referred to as "positive"
2) A very important warning is left out, that being that the two cars involved in jump MUST not be touching, or else there is a potential for hundreds of amps to jump through the body of the vehicles and possible arc weld the cars together (not to mention ruin every peice of electronic equipment in both cars)
3) Step 5 is inccorect in stating that one should attach the negative cable to the negative battery terminal in both cars. In fact the correct procedure for this is to attach the negative cable to the live negative battery terminal first, then in the dead car, you are supposed to connect the negative jumper cable to a good ground point (engine usually has many places for this)
4) it is ill advised to jump start a dead battery on a new high end car as they have very high output alternators, and the regulator will naturally be running them at full capacity with a dead battery, wuring charging this may actually make some components so hot they could melt. It is much better to instead use a battery charger until you can start the car normally, or go about the jump starting procedure normally except stop at step7, and allow the live car to charge the dead cars battery.
5) also where it says to rev the engine in step 10, there is no need to rev the engine about 2000-2500 RPM as most alternators achieve peak output at 2000RPM