15 Steps to Jump Start a Car

You never know when you will find yourself or some other motorist stranded in a cold, dark parking lot with a dead battery.

If you do, make sure you’ve planned ahead and have a set of jumper cables or a portable car jump starter that you can pull out of your trunk.

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Then follow these 15 steps!

What you will need:

Alright, here are the 15 steps to jump starting a car.

Position the running car and non-running car nose to nose, or close enough so that the jumper cables can reach the batteries of the two vehicles, but you still have enough room to walk between.
Turn off the running vehicle.
Open the hoods of both vehicles.
Attach one of the red clamps to the Positive (+) Battery Terminal of the dead car.
Attach the other red clamp to the Positive (+) Battery Terminal of the good car.
Attach the black clamp to the Negative (-) Battery Terminal of the good car.
Attach the black clamp to the engine block (or unpainted, grounded point) of the dead vehicle. (Why not the negative terminal? The high voltages associated with jumping a car can produce explosive gases at the battery. Connecting the clamp away from the battery minimizes the risk of a spark igniting the gases.)
Start the engine of the good car.
Attempt to start the dead car.
After the dead car starts, disconnect the black clamp from the engine block of the dead car.
Disconnect the black clamp from the Negative (-) Battery Terminal of the good car.
Disconnect the red clamp from the Positive (+) Battery Terminal of the good car.
Disconnect the red clamp from the Positive (+) Battery Terminal of the bad car.
Close the hoods and put away the jumper cables until next time.
Let the Dead Car run for at least 30 minutes to charge the battery.