Battery Boost for Dead Car Battery

Has This Ever Happened to You?

You jump in the car to run a few errands in your spare time……and nothing. The car won’t start…..without any warning! Hopefully, if this ever happens again I’ll be prepared with my new NOCO Battery Boost….more about that later.

Update 2024:

If you have one of these in your vehicle, get it out and check the battery strength. The instruction book says to check it annually at least if it hasn’t been used. Mine was down about 50% so it’s plugged in now to recharge. This is a good time to do it while we still have power! We’re in for some snowy cold weather over the next few days!

Dead Battery

I had just driven it yesterday with no problems at all and BAM, just a flash of lights across the dashboard. It’s a 2019 Honda CRV and has never given me one bit of trouble. It is always serviced right on the dot and I’ve felt very safe driving it anywhere.

In fact, some friends and I just got back from a girl trip a few days ago and landed at the Memphis International Airport around 11 pm. Now, I’ve always loved Memphis, TN, but I’m afraid it’s no longer a safe place to go, especially late at night. What would we have done if we had loaded our bags in the car and it wouldn’t crank….at 11:00 at night! But that didn’t happen thank goodness.

At least I was at home when the problem occurred. The hubby wasn’t at home, so I called the Honda Service Center. They said to bring it in. I said…it won’t crank. They said, well you’ll just have to bring it in and let us check it…….really? I knew to just sit tight until the hubby got home, he would know what to do.

Jumper Cables

So, the first thing we did after the hubby got home was to start looking for jumper cables….none to be found at our house! Maybe we lost them in the move, I don’t know, but our son-in-law had some luckily.

He jump-started the vehicle without any difficulty and we took it to the dealership for evaluation. While we were waiting for the assessment, we went to Sam’s to pick up some jumper cables and found none! But we did run across a battery booster.

By the way, it was just a dead battery. They put a new one on, and I was good to go)))

NOCO Battery Boost

Now, I didn’t even know such a thing existed. The hubby did but had never used one. So we made a purchase. It looked simple enough. It was small and chargeable. Had cables that you attach to a battery. It can even charge a phone or device that uses a USB port. And a built-in flashlight!

Now this post isn’t about me trying to sell you a battery boost or about the different kinds on the market etc. But if you are interested, here’s my affiliate link for a NOCO Battery Boost GB20. It’s a little more powerful with 500 amps versus the one I bought that has 400 amps and it’s $10 cheaper!

As soon as we got home with it, we plugged it into an outlet using a cube so it could charge. There is an indicator light to show you when it is fully charged. It will also charge via a USB port.

Will this thing work? I don’t know….it’s charged and stored in my vehicle right now so we’ll just have to wait and see. Maybe the next time the battery dies the vehicle will be at home again)))

My main objective is to protect myself from future problems “hopefully.” But it did get me thinking. To have been raised a country girl, I know the process of jump-starting a vehicle and even changing a tire. But I’ve never done it myself. Have you? So I decided I had better know for sure! Well, on how to jump-start a car…..changing a tire will have to wait for another day))

Step 1 – Raise the Hood

Now, that sounds pretty elementary but it’s not always easy! I’ve hardly ever had to try to raise the hood. If I’ve had a problem, usually someone else raised the hood and propped it up on that little rod thingy. So I asked the hubby to stand back and let me do it.

Well…I popped the hood from the inside of the car and then started searching for that little release thing under the hood. Found it with some guidance from my instructor. You have to just feel under there with your fingers until you find something that will move one way or another.

My husband cautioned me…..it won’t stay up by itself now! You have to prop it up)))

Again, it looks simple enough to prop up the hood, but there is more than just one hole under there! It was square though and there is an arrow pointing to it. The end of the rod is also square, so they lined up pretty well. One box checked off!

Battery – Positive & Negative

Batteries are scary things if you’ve ever seen a jump-start go wrong. Once my dad, husband, and brother were jumping off a vehicle in the backyard and the whole top of the battery literally blew off! They never did know what went wrong that day.

To use the battery boost once it’s fully charged, locate the positive pole of the dead battery. Mine had a red cap and a plus sign.

You will also need to locate the negative pole. It did not have a cap.

The red clamp on the battery boost should be attached to the positive pole of the dead battery and the black clamp attached to the negative pole. Attach red (positive first) and black (negative) second.

I didn’t actually get to jump-start my car since it already had a new battery. I just wanted to practice hooking the battery boost up.

If my battery had been dead, you would just turn the boost on and wait for the white light to come on, and look for any error. If no errors, start the car and turn the battery boost off. Remove the cables in the reverse order – black (negative) first, and then red (positive) last.

Storage

So I have my NOCO GB10 charged and stored in my car. Maybe I’ll never have to use it!

Some might say, just keep a set of jumper cables in your car, and that’s not a bad idea. But, you could be in a situation where there was no other vehicle around that could jump you off.

Anyway, I feel better having it in the car…..now if only I can remember that it’s there when I need it)))