This CarWale Podcast should be saved by everyone. For there can come a time when there will be a need to jump-start a car. It can be your own car or someone you know who found themselves with a dead battery and need a hand getting it started. In Episode 19, Sonam, Jay and Bilal have discussed and detailed out a simple procedure that you can listen and follow and jump-start a car.

How To Jump-Start A Car? Episode 18 | The CarWale Podcast

The discussion is taken up a notch by conversing about what all does jump-starting a car entail? What all does one need in terms of equipment? Can a car be jump-started without the help of a secondary car?

What equipment is required?

- Jumper cable (one black and one red with crocodile clips on each end)

- A fully charged battery or another car with a charged battery

- Rubber gloves for safety

How to Jump-Start a Car?

It’s a simple process once you get wrap your head around a simple concept – ‘positive-positive, negative-ground’. After checking the state of the dead battery, take note of the positive and negative terminals, denoted by the Plus (+) and Minus (-) symbols respectively. Now, pay attention to which cable will connect to which terminal carefully since if not done correctly, it can strike a spark and cause a fire hazard.

Connect one crocodile clip of the Red jumper cable to the positive terminal of the dead battery and the other end to the positive terminal of the charged battery. Second step, and pay attention here, connect the Black jumper cable’s one end to the negative terminal of the charged battery, while the other end of the black cable will be connected to any bare metal part. Do not get it anywhere near the negative terminal of the dead battery. The bare metal could be chassis, body panel, engine block/mount etc. but make sure it doesn’t have paint on it.

Once the connection is made, start the donor car with the charged battery first. Once it is up and running, go ahead and crank the car with the dead battery. And voila! The car with the dead battery will crank up using the power from the charged battery. Let both the cars idle for good few ten minutes so that the dead battery can build up a charge of its own.

What next?

Now that the car with a dead battery is running, remove the jumper cables in the exact opposite order in which they were connected to prevent any sparks or accidents. Once both the cables are removed, allow the car with the dead battery to idle for another five to ten minutes for the alternator to charge the battery.

Go ahead, save this podcast as we have also discussed a few dos and don’ts of jump-starting a car.