How not to light the engine: tips for motorists

Many drivers are interested in the question, but is it even possible to "light" the engine from a modern car, stuffed with a huge amount of electronics? Especially, this is relevant in anticipation of winter, since most often problems with starting are noted precisely in the cold season. The opinions of experts on this issue differ, because it can be dangerous for a donor car. But what to do if the battery is dead, and you need to go urgently?

Of course, such a phenomenon as "lighting" in the Zhiguli era was considered completely normal. But time goes on and everything changes. A modern car is a complex system, more like a computer with many features and a huge number of on-board devices. And when lighting often began to fail on-board electronics. Now, many drivers refuse to give a “light”, because no one wants to stay suddenly without a vehicle.

Nevertheless, it is still possible to “light”, only under strict observance of certain conditions, which, unfortunately, often even experienced drivers with great experience do not know about. Let's look at a few of these important rules.

What cannot be done and how to avoid serious mistakes?

When "lighting" you can not make banal mistakes. Among them, perhaps, the main ones are:

• You cannot light a car with a dead battery if its starter worked fine until the battery was completely empty and the engine still did not start. Most likely, the battery is not guilty in this situation, but the starter malfunction. First you need to solve this problem. But you won’t help with lighting here, most likely you’ll just put your battery in as well.
• It is not recommended to take household wires when lighting. They, unlike special wires for lighting, are very thin and they will be of little use. Such wires when trying to start the engine can melt very quickly and even lead to burns. They can only be used to connect to a donor battery and leave two power sources in this form for a while. This can help recharge the battery a bit, as it will take away some of the energy from the donor. After this, the wires must be disconnected and try to start the engine.
• Do not try to light a car on which the battery is installed significantly more powerful than yours. This option may still work in the summer, since the required starting current will not differ dramatically. But in the cold, a small battery, most likely, will not be able to cope with the scroll of a powerful cold diesel engine. You either will not succeed, or you will put your battery in.
• When connecting wires for lighting a car, do not connect the "cons" first. This is due to the fact that if the cons are connected, and you accidentally touch a metal element of the car with a positive charge wire, you will get a strong discharge. But if you connect the positive terminals first, you can avoid such troubles.
• Do not allow anyone to the car, always connect the cigarette lighter wires in person. Be sure to make sure that everything is connected correctly, taking into account the polarity, that the cables do not touch the moving parts of the motor. Only you are personally responsible for your car.

• When connecting a negatively charged wire, if possible, do not connect it directly to the negative terminal of the starter battery. Better try under the hood to find any metal part of the engine-for example, a lifting eye that lifts the power unit. This will slightly reduce the resistance when the current flows to the starter. True, in modern machines under the hood, finding the right metal is a difficult task, since usually everything in them is closed with protective plastic elements.
• It is also not recommended to break the contact with the battery terminal of the donor car. This rule is due to the fact that modern cars have a complex on-board system, and electronics with such a shutdown, the battery may interpret it as an emergency. As a result, all functions are instantly blocked, and unlocking a vehicle without the help of car service specialists can be very difficult, and sometimes not even possible. If the donor is a simple car of the "old school", then such a shutdown does not threaten any negative consequences.
• You should not try to start the engine on the donor machine before lighting it. And there are several reasons for this: there is little sense in this, since the battery will take up most of the load, sometimes the electronic components of the on-board system can negatively react to the presence of foreign elements. If you want the car not to suffer, then you do not need to take any more risks, even if you are 100% sure that nothing will happen.

How to connect the wires for lighting?

What you can’t do, we’ve examined, now we’ll remind all motorists of the correct sequence, following which we must connect the wires if you intend to “light” the car from the battery of another vehicle:

• Step 1. Take the positive contact (+) of the starting wire and connect the positive (+) terminal of the battery-donor and the positive (+) terminal of the battery on the vehicle you want to start.
• Step 2. Take the negative contact (-) of the cigarette lighter wire and use it to connect the negative (-) terminal of the donor battery to any metal element of the engine under the hood, if the car does not have access to "metal", then connect the wire to negative terminal (-) of a discharged battery.
• Step 3. Check everything carefully and make sure that the connected wires do not touch any moving parts of the car engine.
• Step 4. The most crucial moment-try to start the engine. If everything went well, you can safely disconnect the wires. Attention! When disconnecting, the negative (-) contact is first removed from the vehicle being launched, only then from the donor battery. The contacts of the positive (+) wire are disconnected last, and in the same sequence.
• Step 5. Let the engine idle a little so that the battery can recover its capacity. Now you can go, just do not forget that for proper operation you must definitely check the battery’s performance, recharge it or choose a replacement if it can no longer cope with its working functions.

You can always order buy wires for lighting battery in Kiev, Kharkov or Odessa in the online store 130.com.ua.

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