Sunday afternoon, the battery light on my car turned on for the first time ever. In all the times I've had battery or alt issues, it has never turned on. The car has 240k, the battery is maybe 3 years old max and alt is probably the same. Both are Duralast (my mistake). When the light was on I tried to put as much load on the electrical system as possible to see if I could get it to briefly die and confirm an alt issue. I turned on a/c, defrost, brights, all remained normal. The only other symptom I noticed was that rather than idling at 700-900 rpm, the car would sometimes idle at 1500 with the light on. The light doesn't remain on and I can't pinpoint what makes it turn on or off.
Coming home last night, the light turned on again. Not immediately after starting the car but soon after I started moving. I try and load the system heavily again and it still won't "skip". The dash lights seemed slightly dim but I might just be paranoid. As I got closer to home, the needles on the gauges would bounced down to 0 and then back up to where they should be. The radio would continually turn off. When I flash the brights the car will briefly die.
Does this all point to a bad alternator? I could get it tested for sure, but it doesn't have quite the same symptoms as the last time the alt went bad. It's frustrating because the original one lasted 200k, and I'm really busy right now and it's very cold and I would love to wait until the weekend to change it, though I don't think that's possible.
I drove the car to work today, but that was definitely a mistake. I haven't had a chance to check the charging system but I will go to Napa on my break.
When I started the car everything worked fine, but the light was on. Thinking about it, the wipers have been very slow the last few days also. After driving for a few minutes, the radio started turning off, then the dash stopped working also. The using anything like the blinkers or the wipers would make the car "skip", or die, if you know what I mean. I was on the highway and it was skipping pretty bad, I could barely stay at speed and I was already regretting driving it. I turned off everything else that drew power but it kept getting worse. I started going up a hill and downshifted to 4th to stay at speed and it almost seemed to clear its throat and everything worked again. The dash started working, the radio came back on, I drove completely normally the rest of the way to work.
With all those factors, doesn't a short sound more likely than a dying alternator? I don't see how an alternator could get better, I would think it would steadily get worse. A few months ago, the car also had trouble starting for a whole day for seemingly no reason, checked out on a tester, and never had another issue.
Does this all point to a short? And if so where do I start? I briefly checked both connections on the alt and they seemed fine, both terminals looked fine as well. Where do I go from there? I know chasing it down is a tedious process and I'm not looking forward to it
Coming home last night, the light turned on again. Not immediately after starting the car but soon after I started moving. I try and load the system heavily again and it still won't "skip". The dash lights seemed slightly dim but I might just be paranoid. As I got closer to home, the needles on the gauges would bounced down to 0 and then back up to where they should be. The radio would continually turn off. When I flash the brights the car will briefly die.
Does this all point to a bad alternator? I could get it tested for sure, but it doesn't have quite the same symptoms as the last time the alt went bad. It's frustrating because the original one lasted 200k, and I'm really busy right now and it's very cold and I would love to wait until the weekend to change it, though I don't think that's possible.
I drove the car to work today, but that was definitely a mistake. I haven't had a chance to check the charging system but I will go to Napa on my break.
When I started the car everything worked fine, but the light was on. Thinking about it, the wipers have been very slow the last few days also. After driving for a few minutes, the radio started turning off, then the dash stopped working also. The using anything like the blinkers or the wipers would make the car "skip", or die, if you know what I mean. I was on the highway and it was skipping pretty bad, I could barely stay at speed and I was already regretting driving it. I turned off everything else that drew power but it kept getting worse. I started going up a hill and downshifted to 4th to stay at speed and it almost seemed to clear its throat and everything worked again. The dash started working, the radio came back on, I drove completely normally the rest of the way to work.
With all those factors, doesn't a short sound more likely than a dying alternator? I don't see how an alternator could get better, I would think it would steadily get worse. A few months ago, the car also had trouble starting for a whole day for seemingly no reason, checked out on a tester, and never had another issue.
Does this all point to a short? And if so where do I start? I briefly checked both connections on the alt and they seemed fine, both terminals looked fine as well. Where do I go from there? I know chasing it down is a tedious process and I'm not looking forward to it
Comment