Jump-Starting: Do It Safely Without Damage to Your Car!
Discover how improper jump-starting can harm your car's electronics and learn safe practices to protect your vehicle.
The Jump-Start Mistake: Why You Are Probably Damaging Your Car's Elect
1. The Danger: Voltage Spikes
2. The Classic Mistake: Connecting Negative to Negative
3. The Correct Order: Step by Step
4. Why the Ground Connection Matters
5. The Revving Mistake
6. The Cable Quality Problem
7. When Not to Jump-Start
8. The Portable Jump Starter Solution
9. The Bottom Line
-
1 / 10
Your battery is dead. You are stuck in a parking lot. A friendly stranger offers a jump start. You are relieved. You grab the jumper cables, attach them quickly, and within minutes the engine roars back to life. Problem solved.
Except it is not. You may have just damaged your car"s electronics. And you would never know it until weeks or months later, when a sensor fails, the engine computer glitches, or the radio stops working.
Jump-starting a car seems simple. But doing it incorrectly can send a destructive voltage spike through your car"s sensitive electronics. Modern cars are packed with dozens of computer modules that operate at precise voltages. A single spike can fry them instantly.
Here is why you are probably jump-starting incorrectly, and how to do it safely every time.