by Amir Khan

Created on: October 23, 2009   Last Updated: October 27, 2009

Jump Starting A Car

Jump starting a car is needed when the battery goes dead. There are many ways that can happen; you could leave your key in the ignition in the ACC position and sometimes just doing that will drain your battery out. Others may do something simple for example just leaving a light on overnight. Or as other people do while they're washing their cars they usually play their music with their cars radio while they're washing their cars, and of course all of us love having a nice, shiny, brand new looking car so we make sure we take as much as time as we need to keep it clean.

Back to jump starting a car though, there are two ways I know of to bring a cars battery back to life. First, you could do the actual jumpstart where you use jumper cables and attach them to your cars battery and then to somebody else's battery and you start your car up, and second, if you are driving a manual transmission car, you should put the gear shifter in to the second gear position, hold the clutch down, have somebody push the car and when you feel a strong momentum going about 5 mph you turn the ignition and you pop the clutch. Doing so will result in a jolt to the transmission and will usually turn the engine over to start the car up. Now, if you have a completely dead battery only the latter method will get the car started again. For car batteries that are dead like that you will most likely need a new battery. But first, you should check some things before you decide to purchase that new battery. You should ask yourself these questions; is there corrosion around the terminal?

The terminals are the lines that connect the battery to the car. Usually that will not let your car start up, if so, you should use a rag or paper towel clean off the corrosion or you might want to use a brush because sometimes it will corrode a little too much and you will have to brush the debris off. Next, you will have to remove the terminal wire, wipe the end of it and then clean off the part on the battery that the line was connected too. Then of course, you connect the battery line again and see if the car will start up. Another thing you should do is take your car to a mechanic. You could get it towed there or have the mechanic come to you and check your radiator. Your radiator is what charges the battery while the car is started up and if it isn't working properly than your car can actually start losing the battery charge because your radiator won't be able to charge it.

Finally, the last thing you could probably do for your car before actually buying that brand new battery is investing in a battery charger just to charge your battery overnight and you could try again the next day. You should always make sure your car is in good condition to make sure something like a dead battery won't happen to you though, batteries aren't usually expensive and of course all of them do die eventually. But you never know that one unfortunate day where you might just get stuck on the side of the road on a cold winter day having a good charged battery would definitely be a great help.

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