Imagine you are on a cool road trip with your loved one enjoying the peaceful moments of the journey, suddenly the battery of the four-wheeler goes dead, and it stops in between nowhere. It is a complete miserable condition. The trick which can ultimately help you out here is jump-starting your car engine.
Whenever you have a dead or malfunctioning battery, you can give it a try. It works most of the time. Vehicle batteries can work up to some extent, flawlessly when you are able to jump-start it. Here in this article, we are going to let you know about the details of jump-starting a car.
Jump-starting a car denotes providing an external spark to the car battery so that it can overcome the flat stage and returns to the working position. Generally, this is done with the assist of another fully recharged battery. The total procedure must be performed under the utmost safety precaution. All total this is a fantastic strategy to get your battery workable.
Components required for the trick
The particulars we need to jump-start a car battery are –
An adequately charged battery most probably from another vehicle (most times you might be lucky to find a good Samaritan just along the road your vehicle breaks down).
A set of jumper wires.
Steps of jump-starting a car battery
The treads of jumps starting a vehicle battery are:
1. Bring the car with a well-conditioned battery in close proximity to the other one
First and foremost, you are going to have to bring the two vehicles in close proximity (your flat charged four-wheeler and the well-charged vehicle of a good Samaritan), but if you are lucky enough to have a jumper cable like the Unique Imports 3501, then, you may not necessarily go through the pain of bringing the two vehicles bumper-to-bumper.
2. Turn off all the electrical equipment and ignition of both vehicles
For the next line of action, you are going to need to shut down your own vehicle (the one with the flat battery), and also that of the good Samaritan who’s willing to help you jump start your car battery with his own, that is, turn off the ignition and every electrical component of the two vehicles.
3. Time to fix and fit the car jumper cables
Usually it’s always a good practice to buy a set of car jumper cables from the best4driver website and keep in your car trunk because of situations like these, but in case you’ve failed to do so, then you’ve got to hope that the good Samaritan who’s willing to help you with their charged battery is also willing to lend you his jumper cables. For the whole process, you are going to need two jumper cables.
4. Now it’s time for the connection; trust me, it’s not so technical! So let’s go, shall we?
Right on the battery of your vehicle, you are sure going to find something like “POSITIVE,” “POS” or the symbol “+” on it. If you don’t see anything like this, do not panic; you are sure going to notice that a terminal is bigger or larger than the other, right? Yes that’s your Positive terminal and it is the one you will connect one of the red clips on the jumper cable to. Also on your jumper cable is another red clip, attach this other clip to the positive terminal of the other vehicle (that of the good Samaritan). To complete the connection process, you are now going to connect one of the black clips on your jumper cable to the negative terminal of the battery in the other vehicle. Finally, you will now try to locate an unpainted metal surface on your car (the earthing point). Typically, this unpainted area can be one of the struts that hold your vehicle hood (bonnet). To this unpainted area, you will attach the last black clip of your jumper cable. And voila you are done with the connections.
5. Start the ignition of the working engine
Next step is to start the ignition of the working engine. Spontaneously, the working engine will induce the electrical spark your battery needs to overcome its flat stage.
6. Start your car engine
Then start the flat battery engine, the chances are that it may not come up upon the first couple of attempts but do not hesitate to try a few more times.
7. Leaving the engine to run
After starting, leave the engines in a running position for a few minutes.
These are the basic footsteps that will guide you to jump-start a flat car battery initially.
Important precaution while jump-starting a car.
The precautions that must be taken care of:
Don’t perform this plan if either of the jumper cables is damaged.
Don’t engage a semi charged battery in this measure.
Remove any metal belonging from your body before conducting the task.
Don’t de-tether the batteries while the process is going on.
These precautions you should follow while working with the jumper wires.
What to do next
You have to remove the wires systematically after completion of the process.
At the very first put off the start of both engines.
Then remove the black jumper cable from the flat engine side. Then disconnect from the other end.
After that, remove the red wire from both ends. At first disconnect from the good vehicle engine end then take it off from the flat engine side.
After regaining the power of the faulty battery, charge it to its full capacity. Then drive the vehicle for some time on a traffic-free lane so that the vehicle can run smoothly without too much use of brakes. Thus you can jump-start a car with ease keeping in mind the above criteria.
How do I choose the right jumper cables?
Indeed, we’ve already seen how effective jump starting a vehicle could be, but without the right jumper cables, none of all we’ve discussed above will be feasible, right? A good practice would be for you to identify what type of cable you need to buy and keep in your vehicle. To determine the type of cable that’s right for you, you will have to check for stuffs like cable length, cable gauge, and type of clamp.
The wire gauge
How thick your jumper cable is will be determined by the wire gauge number, and the lower the number the thicker the wires. Now for your battery jump-start, you really want a thick wire that will be able to withstand the high current flow you need to ignite your vehicle. For reliable results, heavy-duty wire gauge like the Unique Imports 3501 is recommended.
The level of insulation
Always opt for cables with heavy insulation, but do not trade heavy insulation for thick wire gauge. Thick insulation also ensures the wires don’t overheat during the period of current flow. Typically, with a cheaper jumper cable comes to a thin wire gauge wrapped in thick insulation. At Best4driver though, you can always trust that you will always find the right insulation.
Length
The length of the cable is another great factor worthy of consideration. Imagine having a stopover at one end of the road and the vehicle that’s going to charge yours has to maintain a long distance for safety reasons. If your jumper cable isn’t long enough, it might create a big problem. For starters, you can try keeping a cable like the Bayco (SL-3010) in your car trunk. It is known to come in a length of 25 feet.
