Jump a car

Park the donor close enough for the cables to reach. Leave a gap so the vehicles do not touch. Set both parking brakes, shift to Park or Neutral, switch both ignitions off, and take metal jewelry off your hands.

Look at both batteries. Continue only if the cases are intact, dry, and their normal shape, and you do not smell fuel. On a hybrid or electric car, continue only if that manual says the 12-volt battery may be jumped. Leave orange high-voltage cables alone.

Clamp one red jaw on the positive post of the dead battery, the post marked +. Clamp the other red jaw on the donor's positive post. Keep loose clamps from touching each other.

Clamp one black jaw on the donor's negative post, marked −. Clamp the last black jaw on an unpainted metal bracket or bolt on the dead car's engine, away from the battery and away from belts. Leave the dead battery's negative post bare.

Start the donor and let it idle about a minute. Try the dead car. If it does not crank, wait two more minutes and try once. Keep each crank short.

After it starts, take the clamps off in reverse: black off the engine ground, black off the donor, red off the donor, red off the car that was dead. Leave the revived car running so its charging system can work.

If the engine dies as soon as the cables come off, the battery or the charging system needs a shop.