Don't be intimidated as a first-time motorist whenever your battery dies. There's a way to fix it. It isn't difficult to jumpstart your car battery that has died.
It's however important to know what to do to keep it from dying. For one thing, you should keep using your car regularly in order to minimize battery power drainage.
The more you don't use your vehicle, the more the battery will get drained. If you're not going to use your car for a week or a month, start its engine every morning and let it run for 10 minutes to keep your battery from being fully drained.
Jumpstarting a Car Battery 101
- Let a Repair Facility Handle It: If you're near a car repair shop, gas station, or mechanic shop, you can have them remove your discharged battery from your hood, hook it up to their electrical outlet, and let it charge for about an hour or so. This should get your battery charged up enough to allow you to use it. You don't even need to know how to remove the car battery yourself and whatnot.
- Portable Power Pack: Some motorists have a portable power pack available in the trunk of their car in case of emergencies involving battery discharges. Just get that self-contained battery, attach it to your discharged batter with jumper cables, and let it rescue you by getting your battery charge back up to life. It's like a cellphone power bank used for car batteries.
- Jumpstarting a Car with Another Car: You also have the option to connect your dead car battery to a live one from your other car or neighbor's car. After putting the jumper cables in the correct slots or posts, just start the other car and then let its battery share its charge with your battery as you start your affected car as well.
- The Right Connection: When connecting jumper cables from one battery to another (or it could be a power pack and the like), connect the positive terminals first. Afterwards, connect the negative terminals. Start with the working battery or power source first before connecting the discharged batter with the cable as well.
- Clamp to the Chassis of the Car: Instead of using the dead battery's negative pole post, clamp the jumper cable to the chassis of the car. This is for the sake of getting a stronger ground. The battery requires grounding out through the chassis anyway, so you're cutting the middleman by simply clamping the cable to the chassis from the start.