It is inevitable that a dead battery can happen to anyone. Nothing is worse than being stranded with a dead battery and having to wait on someone to come help you. Maybe you have jumper cables in the back of your car, but if you don’t know how to use them they are essentially useless. Jumper cables can be a life-saver and you can do the saving by following a few simple steps.

How are to connect the Jumper Cables

1. The first thing you need to do is find someone who will let you use their car to jump yours.

2. The car with the good battery needs to be parked closely to the car with the dead battery.

3. Open both cars hoods and locate the batteries within both of them. Some batteries may be covered with plastic hoods, you need to remove these in order to connect the cables for the jump.

4. The batteries have both positive (+) and negative (-) posts. The positive post is typically red, but not always. Always default by looking for the plus and minus symbols. Be sure to remove any dust or debris before applying the cable.

5. Get out the jumper cables and connect one red clamp to the positive post of the dead battery. The clamp needs to be connected firmly. You should then clamp the matching end of the cable to the positive post on the working battery.

6. Connect one of the black clamps to the negative post on the working battery.

7. Here’s where it changes. Instead of clamping the other end of the matching cable to the negative post on the dead battery, you have to clamp it somewhere else. Find a bare metal surface on the engine of the dead car. A bolt or screw will suffice. This change helps provide a grounding when you perform the jump start.

8. You should first start the car with the functioning battery and let it run for a couple minutes.

9. Start the engine of the dead car and let it run for a few minutes.

10. If the dead car seems to start with no issues you can begin to disconnect the clamps.

11. Carefully disconnect the black camp from the “dead” battery car, and then remove the clamp from the other car.

12. Remove the red clamp from the “good” battery car and then remove the clamp from the “bad” battery car.

To Sum It Up

It is important that you follow all instructions carefully when dealing with a live battery. Jumping the car is fairly easy, but you do need to proceed with caution. Make sure that the red and black clamps never touch. Remember when disconnecting that you undo the cables in the reverse order that you applied them. When beginning the jump process: red then black. When you disconnect the cables: black then red.