Newly Licensed Drivers

Learn how to jump start your car's dead battery - watch the video.

Closed Caption

Introduction

[CAR DOOR OPENING] The stupid battery's dead.

I'm so late now! [GROWLING & STOMPING FOOT] [INTRO & UPBEAT MUSIC] Hi there smart drivers.

So you have a dead battery.

You can quickly get it going with a set of booster cables booster cables are often included in the winter kit so you can put in your vehicle.

And I do recommend you putting one of those in there.

And as well, I'll leave a card up in the corner for you over there...I believe.

On winter survival kits.

Overview

So booster cables - you need another vehicle that's running with a live battery in it.

And you're going to hook the booster cables up to the live battery first and then you're going to hook them up to your battery.

And it's black to black, red to red.

And after you start your vehicle you need to leave it running for 20 or 30 minutes.

The alternator will charge the battery.

And then you can shut it off again and the battery will have enough charge to get it going again.

So 20 to 30 minutes and then once you get your vehicle started.

Unhook them in reverse: so off your battery first and then off the live vehicle.

And make sure the ends of the booster cables don't touch.

So stick around.

We're going to give you a bit more detail if you haven't done this before or not sure how to identify the positive and negative posts on the battery.

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Now there are different kinds of booster cables.

As I said, they come in the winter kits and they're not very heavy-duty.

If you want a better set of booster cables you can purchase those.

They're longer, and they're more heavy-duty.

Getting A Boost Car

If you've got a big pickup truck or you're running multiple batteries in your unit you probably want a heavier set of booster cables.

Now getting another vehicle to boost your vehicle: if you're in a parking lot somewhere you're going to have to go and ask somebody, or you can call a taxi or you can call a tow truck.

And they'll come and give you a boost.

But most the time you just walk around the parking lot and ask people and they'll bring their vehicle over and give you a boost.

Which Side is the Battery on In Engine Compartment?

Now you have to figure out which side of the vehicle your battery is on so they can get close to that side and you can hook the booster cables up.

Because if you have short booster cables, you're going to need reach from one vehicle to the other.

Fortunately where my vehicles is parked right now I can just let it roll back and I can get the other vehicle in and it's fairly easy to hook up the cables.

How to Find Positive Terminal

Now the other thing that you need to do in terms of hooking up the cables, you need to identify which battery post is the positive, and which one is the negative.

When identifying the positive terminal on the battery, it is always, always bigger than the negative post.

And there's three ways to do that:

1) the positive is almost always red;

2) the positive post is always bigger than the negative post;

3) and then finally the cable coming off the negative post goes to either the body on the vehicle or it goes to the frame.

So that's the way that you can identify the post.

Risk Of Injury

And you don't want to hook the batteries up incorrectly.

Remember it's negative to negative, positive to positive.

Because you could risk injury or explosion of the battery if you hook them up incorrectly.

And after you get the battery cables hooked up to the battery don't click them together: woo hoo nice sparks! [LAUHGING]

If you hook the jumper booster cables up incorrectly, you risk explosion of the battery.

Because potentially could cause damage and cause the battery to explode.

So make sure you hold the cables cable ends--the booster cable ends--apart so that they don't touch.

So as I said, get the live vehicle into place, hook up the battery cables to the battery that's live first.

And then hookup to yours (dead battery).

When hooking jumper booster cables, red is positive and black is negative. Hook positive to positive and negative to negative.

Disconnect Jumper Cables After Dead Vehicle Starts

Start your vehicle, let it run for about 20 or 30 seconds.

I have seen people, when you've got another person and they're hooking up the live vehicle you can rev up the motor a little bit to provide a bit more juice.

But most of the time if you just hook them up, your vehicle will start up right away.

And then you know, within 20 or 30 seconds disconnect the booster cables.

Then you just go on your way.

Close your hood and you're good to go.

And like I said, let your vehicle run for about twenty minutes...thirty minutes and that way you'll be sure that there's enough charge in the battery for it to start the next time.

So there's a few other ways that you can do this as well.