Welcome to the new blog for March! We hope you and your family are prospering in this new year.
With the recent weather causing some car issues this time of year, we thought it might help refresh you on the rules of how to jump-start a car from another car if your battery should fail.
- Pull up another car so that the driver's side front wheel is close to keep the batteries near each other. Do not let the vehicles touch.
- Remove the keys from both ignitions.
- Find the batteries in both cars. Find the positive (red) lead and the Negative (black) lead.
- Untangle the jumper cables.
- Attach the jumper cables to the dead battery, putting the red clamp on the red lead. Put the black clamp on plastic within the car-- do not let it touch a metal surface.
- Ensure that the jumper cable wires are nowhere near the fan, which will start as the engine starts.
- On the good battery, attach the red lead on the positive (red) terminal, and then attach the black lead on the negative terminal.
- Now we clamp the Positive lead to a grounding point.
- Your owner's manual can point out a grounding point where you can safely attach the negative clamp.
- Start the car with the good battery and let it run for two minutes.
- Start the car
- Remove the negative terminal. Do not let the negative terminal touch the engine in any way.
- Remove the positive terminal on the bad battery, again careful not to touch it to the car (or to you)
- Over on the car with the good battery, removed the red cable and then the black cable.
Here's a great YouTube video detailing the process and reminding you what to avoid. We recommend watching the whole thing through before you start the jump!
If you're in the Calcium/Fort Drum/Watertown area and have questions about how to jump a car, come by Service Plus Automotive anytime for a refresher. If your vehicle needs service, schedule an appointment today with Service Plus Automotive for a brake inspection. We are located at 27721 State Route 283, Calcium, NY 13616 (just across from Fort Drum), and we are open Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.