How to Hot Wire 101

*Note from the editor: This is a satirical article! (hopefully)* Please never hot-wire a car unless it’s your own!

*Note from the writer: This is not satire and is 100% factual** Go do what your heart tells you to do

From sneaking out into the city, or starting your own F1 race, Valor students have many vehicular aspirations, yet none of us can fulfill them within the confines of our school and government system. But what if I told you you could liberate yourself from these binds and satisfy your racing dreams through illegally starting up your teacher’s car! In this article, you will learn how to successfully hot wire a car (disclaimer: this only works for really old cars—like the ones where you need to stick a key into them and get the engine running)

Before we begin, you will need the following:

• 01A flat-headed and Philip’s headed screwdriver
• 02Pliers or heavy-duty scissors
• 03Insulated gloves
• 04Duct tape
• 05Proof of ownership of the vehicle (optional)

Step 1: Jamming the Keyhole

In order to begin your hot wiring escapade, you need to start by shoving your screwdriver into the keyhole of your chosen car’s engine and turning it like a key. Make sure you really hammer it in there. If this works, then great! But if your car doesn’t start up, you will need to go through the more manual route.

Step 2: Breaking Open the Steering Panel

If the car didn’t start from Step 1, you will need to then unscrew the above and underneath bolts holding together the steering panel (right behind the wheel the wheel) and pry open the underneath of the panel so that the ignition cylinder and the wires running to it are exposed (be gentle to minimize damage to the steering column as that’s pretty important to drive).

Step 3: Dealing with the Wires

Typically, the two red wires handle the car’s power while the one or two brown wires are connected to the starter. This is where you put your gloves on and start cutting the wires with your pliers and stripping the ends to reveal the metal insides. Do this for both red and brown wires (leave everything else alone) and be careful to not let your bare skin touch the exposed metal, as that could give you a nasty shock.

Step 4: Doing Some Bootleg Engineering🦵

Now that you have your exposed ends, twist the power wire (the red ones) ends together like they’re hugging to provide power to the lights, radio, and other electrical systems, then tape them together to prevent electric shocks whilst driving. Then, touch the starter wire (the brown ones) ends together to jumpstart the car back to (think of it as using a defibrillator to revive a dead guy). Once the car is up and running, tape the ends of the starter wires individually for the same reason as before. If the car has only one starter wire, touch it to the exposed power wires to try and start the car.

Step 5: Some Criminal Business

In most old cars, there is a rudimentary security system called a lock bolts that prevents you from moving the wheel all too much. In order to bypass this annoying gimmick, you will need to jam your screwdriver between the wheel and the top of the steering column and pry it a part a bit to undo the lock, freeing the wheel (you can also apply this knowledge to lockpicking if you ever feel that you want your phone from Gunhee’s phone vault).

With this, you're all set to drive to wherever you want, but note that there is a chance the car will either explode or turn off on its own mid-drive, so before that happens you can separate the power wires to turn the car off. Additionally, this guide WILL NOT help with newer cars, as they have electric, wireless security systems that are nearly impossible to handle manually (so this is kinda useless in Korea).