What To Do If Your Car Battery Dies

By Author: Mary Porter
Total Articles: 823
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Have you ever been in the position when the Car Battery died on your vehicle? The Car Battery might be old or quite possibly you’d left the interior light on and this caused the battery to run flat. If so, how did you resolve the situation, did you manage to jump-start the car using a set of booster cables for the Car Battery?

If you did, well done, if you didn’t, would you like a little advice so you’d know how to jump-start cars that have dead Car Batteries in the future?

Great stuff! Here’s a little guide that’ll talk you through the process and hopefully by the time you’ve finished reading it you’ll know how to use jump leads on a Car Battery.

How to begin

To jump start a dead Car Battery you are going to need another car that has a decent battery on it. Position this car close to your own so the red and black booster cables can reach both of the Car Batteries.

Make sure the engines of both vehicles are turned off before you connect the booster leads to the Car Battery. The Red lead connects to the positive terminal of the Car Battery on both vehicles. Then ...
... attach one end of the black lead to the negative terminal of the good Car Battery and the other end to a suitable earthing point on the vehicle that has the flat battery and wait a few minutes.

What happens next?

Climb into the vehicle that has a decent Car Battery, turn the ignition over and leave it running for a minute or two to allow current to pass between both the Car Batteries. Next start the engine of the vehicle that has the flat Car Battery and leave both engines running with the leads connected at a quick idle for between five to ten minutes.

After this period passes switch off both engines and remove the leads in the reverse order that you fitted them. Once the leads are packed away try to start the vehicle that had the problem Car Battery.

Hopefully the car will fire up straight away, if not, there could be an issue with the Car Battery and it might need replacing, it might be advisable to get it tested at a centre that sells new units at this stage.