If you’ve been driving for years, then it is very likely that at one time your car refused to start on its own which may have been as a result of a bad starter. This is a common thing especially in cold weather conditions where the battery gets dead and the car stops. To deal with a bad starter is a normal thing to many motorists and it shouldn’t make you tense or be worried at all. In this article, we’re going to show you how you can get your car started in an easy and simple way with a bad starter.
- First of all, to successfully start your car with a bad starter, you need to have these tools with you to get the job done. These include: jumping cables, voltmeter, pliers, goggles, hammer, gloves, water or caustic soda and another car with a properly charged battery.
- Before you request another car with a perfectly working battery, you need to try tapping it with a hammer. When you turn the ignition on and discover that the car isn’t turning on, go ahead and tap the hammer on the starter around 5 times. After you do so, try and start the car engine. Something may be stuck in the starter and doing this might release it.
- If the first step didn’t work, then you can move on to this step. Identify where the car battery is based in your car. Different cars might have different types of batteries. Locate the negative and positive terminals. These terminals have signed on them and it’s difficult for you to confuse them, so there is nothing to worry about.
- The third step is to park the car close to each other but they shouldn’t be attached. A small distance should be left between the cars. Park the car with the bad battery and the one with the good battery very close to making jumpstarting to be easy. Before you proceed, ensure that all the electronic parts of both cars are completely turned off.
- Then, wear goggles and gloves for safety measures. Begin inspecting the battery for any form of cracks or damages on it. If the battery is damaged, you shouldn’t jump-start the car. Instead, change the battery as this could be really life-threatening. But if the battery is fine, you can go ahead with the process of jumpstarting it.
- Get your jumper cables ready to be connected. When you check the jumper cables that you have, you will notice that they as well have red and black cables just like your car battery. Also, the jumper cables have huge duty clamps that are connected to the terminals of your battery. When you are ready, connect the jumper cables to your battery.
- Start the working car. Don’t race it but just rave the engine first. This action will help the battery of the bad starter car to charge and this is extremely crucial. The car with a bad starter may have a battery that is not charged which is very important. Don’t interrupt this process and you should allow the battery to fully charge.
- You can now turn on the car with the bad starter. If the battery has fully charged, it will start right away. But if the battery isn’t well charged, you may be required to charge it for some time. In case it fails completely, then you will need to replace it.
- Finally, after the car with the bad starter has started, remove the cables off. Begin with the black clamp and remove it from the car with bad starter, then, take off the black clamp from the working car’s terminal, take off the red clamp on the terminal of the disabled car and lastly, remove the red clamp from the terminal of the car with a bad starter.
Follow these steps if you have a bad starter and you will realize that it is a very simple and quick way of restarting your car. Hopefully, you’ve found this article to be of great importance.