Your car battery is one of the most crucial pieces of equipment present in your vehicle – completely essential for not just safe driving, but to have an ability to drive at all! In this blog entry, the Chicagoland battery jump start service experts here at Towing Chicago will detail the top causes of drained car batteries.
In this blog entry, the Chicagoland roadside assistance experts here at Towing Chicago will detail some crucial safety procedures for jumpstarting cars during rainy or wet weather.
A common issue that leads to the call for roadside assistance is cars who’s batteries have run out. This issue – while fixable – can prove to be not only inconvenient, but extremely dangerous, especially while you’re driving. In this blog post, the towing company at Towing Chicago will detail a few guidelines on ways to jump start your car in Chicago with a dead battery.
If you’re on the road and find that the battery of your vehicle suddenly runs out, you may want to attempt to jumpstart the battery using another vehicle’s power and some jumper cables. You can either attempt to signal another driver on the road, or contact a friend or someone in your phone if it’s in a location that they can travel to. It can be a fantastic fix if you have all the necessary equipment. Here’s a guide to effective jump starting as prepared by the towing and vehicle recovery experts at Towing Chicago.
Some of the most common equipment that requires heavy hauling is heavy machinery or construction equipment. While many companies have their own hauling equipment, lots of others don’t, or perhaps they need to use their hauling equipment for another big project.
Regardless of the project where it’s implemented, heavy hauling is a difficult and technically complex job. The kind of equipment that requires heavy hauling is expensive and delicate, despite its extreme weight. Due to the extreme value of this equipment, and the magnitude of the job’s complexity, it’s totally necessary to hire a professional hauling company. It’s of major importance that they are trustworthy, and have the necessary experience and expertise to safely finish the haul without causing any damage to the vehicle.
When you’re transporting extremely heavy and large equipment, the haul’s route should be determined in advance. There’s many detailed aspects to the ride that absolutely need to be considered, including the height of overpasses. Both equipment and even the overpass could be damaged, which could not only result in heavy costs but also put people’s lives at risk. There will be many potential obstacles including weight limits on roads and bridges. A truly professional hauling company will know exactly how to find and expertly navigate the best route to haul out the equipment to it’s rightful destination.
In the frigid winter weather, Chicago residents often encounter poor to bad driving conditions. Since most drivers never learn defensive driving techniques for bad weather, during the winter many accidents occur that otherwise never would have. Because of this, it’s absolutely essential that you prepare for driving under poor weather conditions; first of all, always keep a raincoat, umbrella, and gloves/scarf in the trunk of the car. You might have to change a tire in the middle of a snowstorm or cold downpour. Also keep a working flashlight in the trunk; as you’ll never know when you’re going to have to change a tire on a dark street or highway. Always remember to keep jumper cables in the trunk – you want to avoid being stranded in a car with a dead battery without the materials to jump start it. Keep your gas over the halfway mark as a force of habit, that absolutely reduces the chances of accidentally depleting your car’s gas. Ensure that you have a car jack, the proper tire iron for your vehicle, and a correctly blown-up spare tire. If your area gets especially cold during the winter, it couldn’t hurt to have a certified mechanic look at your car to make sure that everything is working correctly. Ideally, if there’s any problems found, you would get them taken care of before being caught driving in an unpleasant weather event, when it might really affect you. By following active awareness and preparation, you can avoid having to spend even more time, effort, or money if your vehicle suffers a breakdown.
Whenever any bad weather event occurs – be it a blizzard, hail, frozen roads, or a rainstorm – one of the most important defensive driving techniques one can adopt is to drive slowly. By driving at a slower speed, you’re increasing the amount of time that you will have to react in case you come into/across some kind of accident. Also, if you’re driving slowly, and keep a large space between your car and the other vehicles that are driving, you’re going to have a much lesser chance of bumping into the back of one of them if they suddenly break. If the roads are incredibly slippery, one thing you should do is keep the brakes lightly applied while driving at a slow pace – for extra traction.
There’s a ton of misinformation out there being hawked by scam towing companies and blogs alike. Here’s a list of the most common towing misconceptions.
Untrue. A trailer’s hitch does not cancel out the maximum capacity rating of your vehicle – however it does maximize it. You should never tow more weight than your hitch is rated for.
Untrue. The safe amount of tongue weight is somewhere between ten to fifteen percent of the trailer’s weight – depending on a range of criteria, including the load distribution and the position of the trailer’s axles. Often too much of the load is placed at the trailer’s front – which puts way too much weight on the tongue. If a heavy tongue is a concern for you, make sure to install a rated weight distribution mechanism, which can allow for more towing weight on your vehicle. The tongue prevents the trailer from swaying fast – this sort of sway can also be canceled if you increase the tongue weight, or place sway control devices on the trailer hitch.
Untrue. Hitch extensions have to have the right capacity of tongue weight for your truck – shorter extensions can handle weight better than longer ones, as a general rule.
Hitching a trailer to your truck and hauling out all your belongings on the open road sounds exhilarating for many people – but if you’re not skilled with long heavy tows it can be an incredibly complex process. There’s 8 major mistakes that people usually make when they’re towing. If you want to avoid paying extreme fees for mistakes, educate yourself on this list of potential mishaps before you embark.
The weight distribution bars between your vehicle and trailer have to be set up correctly; otherwise, the vehicle and the trailer will be bouncing away from each other – causing a bumpy ride, and potential damage to the trailer’s frame and hitch. The size of the weight distribution bar shouldn’t matter – many tunable chained bars come in many different levels of strength or weight – if you use the right bar size, it will be completely parallel to the frame of the trailer.
Here’s a great strategy for automobile jump start stalled vehicle in Chicago. Let’s refer to the stalled car as Car A and the running one as Car B.
Park Car B right in front of Car A so that they are forward facing each other. This is the absolute best parking position, as it allows cars around you to pass by, and doesn’t clog traffic. It also allows for the shortest length of cables to be used, so that you won’t have to buy extra equipment. Make sure Car B’s side battery is close to Car A so that the cables can get to the battery easily.
Open the hoods of both vehicles. Make sure that the hood is secured once it’s open by placing the hood rod in it’s proper hole. If the hood is operated with a hydraulic cylinder and still doesn’t feel secure once lifted, I recommend placing a large stick or broomstick to secure it open, so it doesn’t fall down and cause damage or hurt somebody. If there’s strong weather or wind occurring, I recommend having someone there to physically hold the hood open to prevent an accident from happening.
Get your booster cables out, and clamp the positive (red) side to its adjacent negative cable (black) of Car A. All black cables should be placed about six inches from one another. It’s important to make sure that the cables don’t touch – you don’t want the positive or negative clamps to touch each other.
Now get the other end of the booster cables and attach them to Car B. You must identify the + and – indicating Positive and Negative charges on the battery of Car B. If you can’t read the battery, try wiping it with a napkin or rag. The positive end of the battery always has more wires and attached fuse lines. The negative side is always somewhat thinner, with a cable or two ending by being bolted to the frame or body for grounding.
You might see a small spark. This is good – it shows that it’s working. However if there’s strong sparking, or loud reactions, it might mean that the lights or electronic accessories in Car B are on – these have to be shut off. Everything in Car B should be off, including the ignition which by taking the key out of its slot or off. If you try again and there’s still a large or loud spark, you possibly have a short in the wires. If you don’t, continue connecting the booster cables, ensuring that all electronics and accessories in Car A are also shut off to ensure the strongest charge possible.
If these steps are performed correctly, your vehicle should begin working. Simply leave the engine on for at least three minutes before attempting to start it. If it still doesn’t work, the battery might be dead and may need to be replaced. As an additional precaution, never complete a jumpstart while Car A is not running – this will drain so much power that it might cause irreparable damage to its battery.
Get stuck with your car and need a jump. Call Chicago Towing 24 hour emergency roadside assistance in the Chicago, IL. Flat tire fix, battery boost, jump start, lockout service, fuel delivery and more
