Have you ever found yourself stranded early on a Monday morning with a car that wont start? If so, read our jump starting guide to get you on your way again.

Always carry a set of jump leads in your car you never know when you or someone you know is going to need to use them.

  1. Determine that the battery is dead. If you turn the ignition and the lights, windscreen wipers and radio do not work then that normally means you have a dead or weak battery and it needs to be jump started.
  2. Find a car which is in good working order and will be able to jump start your car.
  3. Park the booster car so that the bonnets of both cars are opposite each other, but are not touching.
  4. Open the bonnets of both cars and determine where the batteries of both cars are. You may need to wipe the battery clean with a rag so that you can determine which is the positive and negative terminal. (N.B. Be careful with the booster car as the battery may be hot)
  5. Make sure that both cars engines are off. Take your jump leads and attach the red jumper cable to the positive terminal of the dead car. If you cant see, the positive terminal is it normally slightly larger than the negative terminal.
  6. Take the other end of the red cable and attach it to the positive terminal on the booster car.
  7. Then take the black jumper cable and attach it to the negative terminal on the booster cars battery.
  8. Attach the other end of the black jumper cable to any solid metal part on the cars engine. (You may get a little spark when you attach this – it is normal.)
  9. Turn on the booster car and rev the engine let it run for a minute.
  10. Then turn on the dead car. If the engine still doesn’t start then you may have a loose connection at any of the 4 of the cable ends. Turn off the engine, jiggle the cable ends about and make sure that they are attached to a metal terminal.
  11. Try and restart the cars again.
  12. Once the dead car is running, you need to disconnect the cables. Do this in reverse order, remove the negative, negative then the positive, positive.
  13. Keep the dead car running for at least 20 minutes, it is best to take it for a long drive to give the battery a chance to recharge.

It is advisible to get you car checked out at your local independent garage to ensure that there is nothing untoward going on which is causing your battery to drain, ie faulty electrics can sometimes cause batteries to drain. For example we have seen customers whose car boot light has been on unbeknown to them and has then drained the battery down - faults like these can be remedied quite quickly.