It’s the scenario nobody wants to experience — you’re out somewhere and your car won’t start. It can happen for several reasons, but a dead battery is a prime culprit. Mercedes-Benz of Jacksonville provides Mercedes-Benz service for batteries and other parts when they’re malfunctioning. However, knowing how to jump-start your car battery is also helpful. Let’s go over the essential steps.
Prepare Your Car and Tools
You’ll need another car and jumper cables to jump-start your battery. Ideally, you’ll have the latter in your car for emergencies like this. First, park the vehicles close to each other, hood-to-hood, and turn them both off. Then, open up the hoods and locate the battery in each before moving on to hooking up the cables.
Connecting the Cars
You’ll need to identify the positive and negative terminals of each battery. Typically, the positive terminal is red while the negative is typically black. You can also look for the plus and minus symbols to identify this.
Remove the caps from your battery terminals, hook up the positive end of the jumper cable to the positive terminal of the dead battery, and connect the other red clamp to the positive terminal of the working battery. Then, connect the black clamp to the negative terminal of the working battery and connect the other end to an unpainted metal surface, like the engine block. Do not connect it to the negative terminal of the dead battery; this can create sparks near flammable materials.
Jump-Starting the Car
When the batteries are hooked up, start the functioning car. Then, let it run for a few minutes. In the running car, rev the engine a bit (up to 2000 RPM maximum) to provide more battery output. After a few minutes, try starting the dead vehicle. If it starts, keep it connected for a few minutes before disconnecting your cables in the reverse order they were attached. Let your car run for at least 15 minutes to ensure it’s back to operational.
Get Mercedes-Benz Battery Service in Jacksonville, FL
If jump-starting your car battery doesn’t work, you may have to bring your vehicle in for Mercedes-Benz service. The Mercedes-Benz of Jacksonville team can examine your electrical system replace your dead battery and get you back on the road in no time!
