How To Jump Start Your UTV

Table of contents:

What You Need to Jump Start a Quad How to Jump Start a UTV

4 November 2022

It happens to the best of us. Out in the middle of nowhere, you might step away and take some time to do something else, but you’ve left the lights on. When you get back to your UTV, it won’t start. A dead battery can be a real bummer if you don’t know how to jump start your UTV, but it doesn’t need to be.

You can learn how to jump start a quad or how to jump start a side by side easily and have your ride back on the trail in no time at all. It’s exactly like you jump a car, but you might want to do it with another UTV. If you’re out there with friends, you only need five minutes to hook cables up, charge the battery, and get it to turn back over.

Image from www.utvactionmag.com

What You Need to Jump Start a Quad

There are only a few things that you need to get your ride back up and rolling. Here’s the short list that you may want to check before you go back out on the trails:

Jumper cables- These are a necessity for any jump start that you may do. The ones you need aren’t particular to a UTV, just any cables that can jump start a battery.
Portable jump starter- If you’re ever out on your own you may be out of luck without one of these. A portable jump starter holds enough charge to get your battery to a level at which the engine will turn over and the alternator can take charge.
UTV tool kit- You might need to get into places that are difficult to get to without a tool kit. A simple kit will suffice and you may even be fine without one.

How to Jump Start a UTV

Your first step is going to be making sure that the UTV actually needs to be jumped. If you are pressing the starter button and nothing at all is happening, the battery is likely dead. You can make sure by trying to turn any lights on to see if it’s a separate issue.

Once you know you need to jump start the UTV, you’ll need to access the battery. Once you have access, connect the jumper cables to the dead battery first. Always start with the positive side, which is the red wire. Attach that to the positive terminal. The black wire (negative) will go to the negative terminal on the battery, or a metal part of the UTV to ground it out.

Next up, connect to the good battery or the jump starter. Once connected, start up the UTV. Once the UTV is running, you can let it charge your battery for five minutes or so. After a solid amount of time, try to start your UTV. If it turns over and starts, don’t turn it off!

If you are having trouble getting it to start, try letting the battery charge for longer or reconnecting all the wires.

Once you get the rig back up and running, disconnect the wires. Now, you want to start by disconnecting the wires, starting with the negative wires. After you’re clear, you should be good to ride long enough to let the alternator give the battery a good charge!