Live, Love, Write, Photograph, Travel - Create Your Life. Capture & Share Your Story
I hooked up jumper cables to Stacey’s car. Few minutes later we tried to start it.
Nothing.
"Maybe the battery is dead."
But something felt off. The cables felt small and light. It was hard to even get good contact from the battery.
Turns out it didn’t matter. Nothing we did would of started the car.
Jumper cables were 10-gauge. The could start a golf cart but not a normal car.
These jumper cables came from a car emergency kit I bought for Stacey. It included 125 items and one of them were jumper cables.
Jumper cable gauge typically ranges from 1 to 12.
Most mechanics recommend you to have jumper cables with 4-gauge rating. This will usually work in most cases including a dead battery.
I have since bought 4-gauge rating jumper cables and already used them couple of times with success, including a dead battery.
This pair of AmazonBasics 4-gauge jumper cables works well for vans, large-size SUVs, full-size cars, mid-size cars, and small/compact cars.
Look at the difference between these two jumper cables. Shitty ones on the left and good ones on the right:
Another thing I’ve been doing completely wrong since 18 when I got my first car is hooking up the jumper cables.
DO NOT DO THIS!
I thought this was normal. And granted the car would start. All worked but this was incorrect. Wrong way. I’ve been doing this for decades.
SHIT. I’ve been doing the battery thing all wrong. Still worked but FUCK. Incorrect the entire time.
Below are the correct steps.
Drive the car around for 10-15 min.
Good detailed video about the process:
Read Next: Complete 6-Part Series: Prepping, Surviving & Thriving in a Pandemic Outbreak