Can You Jump Start a Lawn Mower from a Car?

If your lawn mower won't start, you may wonder, "can you jump start a lawn mower from a car?" The answer is generally, yes, you can. As long as the lawnmower you’re trying to jump start runs on a 12 volt circuit, you can use your car’s battery to charge your lawnmower battery.

In general, it is possible to jump start a lawn mower from a car. However, some older model lawn mowers run on a 6 volt circuit. This means the first thing you need to do is make sure your lawn mower uses a 12 volt battery. As long as it does, you can continue on with the steps of jump starting your mower.

The steps for jump starting a lawn mower from a car are as follows:

• Use your owner’s manual for your lawn mower to find the battery location; in most cases, the battery is located under the lawn mower’s seat, or in a covered battery box. Once you’ve located the battery and verified the correct voltage, you’re ready to connect the battery to the jumper cables. 
• Connect the jumper cables to their respective battery posts. Red is positive or “hot”, and black is negative.
• Make sure that when your jumper cables are connected to any battery, the clamps on the other end do not make contact.
• Park your car in a manner that puts the car battery in close proximity to the lawnmower battery.
• Connect the jumper cables to the car battery after the car has been turned off.
• Do not cross the cables; this means make sure to connect the positive clamp to the positive battery posts and the negative clamps to the negative posts on both batteries. Crossing your jumper cables between the batteries can be extremely dangerous.
• Once the cables are connected, turn the car on to increase the power created by the car battery
• After 2 to 3 minutes attempt to start the lawn mower.
• Once the lawn mower starts, disconnect the jumper cables and turn the car off.  

So, now you know that you can jump start a lawn mower from a car, and you also know the steps to do it safely.