Home / Features  April 16, 2009, 12:01 AM  How to Jump-Start a
Car   jumpstart a car  Chris Philpot  Tools: Jumper cables, good
Samaritan  1. Shut off the running car's engine and pop both
cars' hoods.  2. Remove the rubber caps protecting the terminals
atop each battery. Identify the positive and negative terminals.
(If the + and — symbols have been obscured somehow, note that
the negative terminal is almost always connected directly to the
car's frame by a short, black cable. The positive terminal is
usually connected by several colored cables to various parts of
the engine.)  3. Connect the jumper cables in this order: dead-
battery positive to good-battery positive; good-battery negative
to the engine block or frame of the dead-battery car. (Connect
to raw metal only, not painted or otherwise coated.)  4. Start
the good car and let it run for about five minutes, then try to
start the dead car. If this fails, try again in another five
minutes. If it still doesn't work, the battery is beyond help.
Call a tow