Yesterday while I was out running errands with my wife, as I got back into the car, I heard a loud CLICK CLICK CLICK sound. Anyone who has had a dead battery knows the sound. I looked around, and saw a car diagonally in front of me had lights flicker as I heard the sound again. I popped into the car real quick and told her I was going to offer help. She smiled, fully expecting me to say that.

I asked the guy if he needed a jump and he responded “Oh yeah, do you have cables?” I immediately thought to myself “Who in the world doesn’t keep jumper cables in their car?” Well apparently not a lot of people do, especially the younger generations. (Yes I’m a Gen-X’er). I said that I did, and went to get them from my spare tire compartment. The man opened his hood again and I went to hook up the cables. The man was nice, but had no idea how to properly use the cables, so asked me “How do you normally hook them up?” I told him that I connect the black(negative) clips to both black terminals, then red (positive) of the car that starts, then the red of the car that won’t. I then started my car, and he tried — although it didn’t start, it did try to turn over and you didn’t hear the starter “click”, so that was a good sign. I said we just needed to wait a few minutes and let my car charge up his battery enough to start.

While we were waiting, he mentioned that the car is only a few years old, and he didn’t expect to have issues. I told him that there’s any number of things that could cause a battery to die, but the most common of course (especially when you have young children, which he did) if leaving a light on, or something like that. I told him “Hopefully that’s what it was, because if so you wouldn’t need to replace anything.” He then asked how he could tell if it was the battery or the alternator, so I explained that to him.

“When the battery is charging, it should register around 14 volts with a volt meter. When it’s not charging (or when it’s discharging — i.e. the engine is off and the alternator isn’t running) it should read around 12 volts. So I told him when he gets to where he’s going, check the battery while the car is still running, and if its 12 or less, then you likely have a bad alternator, but if it’s 14 volts, alternator is fine, and you either just needed a charge, or the battery is bad. If this happens again later, it’s likely a bad battery.

Through all this, the couple were very nice, extremely appreciative and very glad I offered. I was happy to help them out, and wished them luck — and said not to turn off the engine until they’re getting to where they need to be in case it doesn’t start again.

The whole experience made me feel good, because I’ve been on the other end of that before and I know how it feels, but it also occurred to me that apparently it’s not as common for folks to carry jumper cables in their car. Do yourself a favor, buy a set, and keep them in your car, trunk, or (like I do) in the spare tire compartment so they’re out of the way. You never know if someone else might need them, or even more so, when you might need them.