Safety is and should always be a main concern for those of you working on and maintaining your vehicles. It’s very easy for someone working on a vehicle to injure themselves, at the same time, it doesn’t take much to prevent accidents from happening.
When it comes to working on vehicles, it’s always a wise choice to disconnect the battery before beginning work on it to prevent things such as electrical shock, shorting components out, and even starting electrical fires. If the vehicle doesn’t need to be running while you’re working on, turn it off, especially when working under the hood. This prevents injuries from accidentally touching moving parts and burns from the hot engine.
Make sure the vehicle is in park and that the emergency brake has been applied. These may seem obvious, but you might be surprised. The emergency brake absolutely needs to be applied when working with jacks, jacks stands, and ramps because serious damage can be done to you and your vehicle if it rolls or slips off one of these tools.
If available, long sleeves and jeans should be worn to protect your skin. These clothing items will stop or at least partially stop potentially hot fluids from touching your skin. “Eye wear is a must and gloves are a plus.” This is a great saying to go by when working on vehicles. Most of the fluids used in automobiles have a very good potential to do very serious damage to your eyes.
- Turn off your car.
- Disconnect the battery.
- Make sure your car is in park.
- Apply the emergency brake.
- Try to use something to chock the tires to keep it from rolling.
- Always wear protective eye wear.
- Wear gloves if possible.