When a car refuses to start, most drivers reach for jumper cables with more urgency than caution. Yet the single biggest mistake in that moment is also the easiest to avoid: treating a jump-start as a ...

One of the most useful tools for your safety and peace of mind while driving a vehicle is a portable jump starter. It wasn’t that far in the past that if you went to start your car and found the ...

A dead car battery happens to almost everyone at some point. According to the American Automobile Association, the common causes include corrosion build up, extreme heat or cold, too many accessories ...

No matter what kind of car you drive, there may come a time when you need to jump start your car or somebody else’s car. Learning how to jump start a car is fairly simple as long as you follow several ...

Consumer Reports no longer updates this product category and maintains it for archival purposes only. It used to be that a set of jumper cables (and an obliging fellow motorist) or a call for roadside ...

Jump-starting cars has always been a bit of a hair-raising experience. Whenever I do it, I’m a nervous wreck, paralyzed with fear that I’ll booger up the connection somehow and blow up both cars in ...

I’ve been writing about cars, car accessories, and car electronics for more than 30 years and have owned almost a dozen cars over that time. Half of those vehicles were older and several only driven ...