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How Do you Jumpstart an Automatic Car

Nidhi Nangia
By Nidhi Nangia. February 22, 2017
How Do you Jumpstart an Automatic Car

Sometimes, you may leave the headlights on overnight and come back in the morning to find the battery of your car totally flat. We have already told you how to move an automatic car with a dead battery. If you have a manual transmission car, you can easily jump start it by asking someone to push your car so that your car gains momentum and starts. But if yours is an automatic one, which is what many people have these days, you may feel yourself trapped. Read this oneHOWTO article to find out how do you jumpstart an automatic car.

You may also be interested in: How To Jumpstart a Car With Jump Leads

Pushing the car, fact vs. myth

Some automatic transmission cars can be jumpstarted by pushing. An expert tip is to put the car in 2nd gear while pushing it start, as the car has a wide range of handling speed than the 1st gear. The process becomes smoother and it becomes possible to jumpstart an automatic car with push start sometimes. Here are the step by step instructions:

  1. Find a place where you can run your car straight
  2. Release the foot and the hand brake, and put the 2nd gear
  3. Once the car gains momentum, try turning the ignition on
  4. If it does not turn on, continue running in 2nd gear and push the gas down as you start the car

But to do that, you will have to push the car at the speed of around 25-40 miles per hour, which is fairly impractical. If you choose to propel the car by attaching it to another vehicle, it may become difficult to control it, as you would need to push it down a steep slope to reach this speed. Because Automatic Car Gears have more complexity than the manual ones, the car becomes more difficult to predict and propel as well, and may lead to unexpected damage. So, though this is a possible option, it is unsafe and not possible most of the times.

Connecting to another car

Follow these step by step instructions to jumpstart an automatic car by tapping some power from another car:

  1. Find a car with a working battery, and bring it near your car. Park the car in such a way that jumpstart cables can access batteries of both the cars.
  2. Turn off the working car, open its hoods and identify the batteries.
  3. Clean the connectors of batteries of both the cars, and make sure that both are debris free.
  4. Locate the red and black sides of both batteries. You will find them clearly marked. Most cars have red cover for the positives, and black for the negatives.
  5. Attach red cable with the positive side of the working car’s battery, and attach its other end to the positive side of the dead car’s battery.
  6. Attach black cable with the negative side of the working car’s battery, and attach its other end to any metallic part of the dead car.
  7. Once you have connected both the cars, start the car with the working battery and keep it running for half an hour.
  8. Now start the dead car. It should start now.
  9. Remove the cables starting with the black one first, and then the red one. Make sure not to let the two connectors touch each other, as it may result in a short circuit.
  10. Keep the car running for a few minutes, just to make sure that it does not stall yet again.

 

If you want to read similar articles to How Do you Jumpstart an Automatic Car, we recommend you visit our Car Maintenance and Repair category.

Tips
  • For an automatic car, the safest solution is to directly recharge the battery if you don't want to undergo further damage and don't want to compromise your safety.
  • Make sure you never try to jumpstart an automatic car by yourself and there is always someone with you to help.

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Shalenera jugamohan
My ford Telstar tx5 2.5 v6 smokes like crazy think rings are gone any thing I can use for temporary to less the smoke
How Do you Jumpstart an Automatic Car
How Do you Jumpstart an Automatic Car

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