Charging problems driving me nuts!

Jeremy_K

Registered User
My alternator is only a few months old and I think I may have ruined it when I installed it with a low battery. While the car is running, it would only be registering 11 volts on the voltmeter. I brought it to the parts store to swap it out under warranty and they tested it 3 times and it passed registering 15 volts:confused: . So I get a brand new battery yesterday and put everything back together. Now the alternator was charging at 14 volts which is good even with lights and IC fan on. This morning I drove to work and tested the alternator while it was running with just my radio and IC fan runnning. It said 11 volts. I turned the car off, and checked the battery and it was at 12 volts:confused: :confused:. I tested the alternator right at the alternator and at my battery terminals in the trunk and the volts were the same. Has anyone heard of an alternator being so intermittent?
 
#1 make sure that all of your connections are good, and that the wires are not damaged in any way. #2 is it a factory or aftermarket alt? I have had alot of problems with aftermarket alts.
 
Keep a booster battery in your trunk... your alternator is bad and will croak, leaving you stranded. Keep a voltmeter plugged into the cigarette lighter if you want a heads up. Not much you can do about it until it does.. I had 2 aftermarket rebuilds do the exact same thing. The 3rd one worked OK and is still working. It was hard to convince the clerks at Autozone that they couldn't test the (*$% thing with that dinky test stand because it needed to run for a while, heat up, and have a load applied before it would turn itself off.
Good luck.
 
charging problems

does your battery light in the dash work? if the light doesnt work , your charging system will not work. my first S/C had a bad circut board on the back of the cluster.. hope this helps sean
 
Aftermarket's questionable

#1 make sure that all of your connections are good, and that the wires are not damaged in any way. #2 is it a factory or aftermarket alt? I have had alot of problems with aftermarket alts.

I'm on my 3rd NAPA "lifetime warranty" alternator for my '97 4.6 LX.

Had the alternator on my '90 SC rebuilt by a alternator shop and that seems to be holding up better than an aftermarket job.

eddie
'90 5-speed SC
'97 LX sport
 
Rebuilds usually do last langer. They are not on an assembly line with cost & time constraints, and actually know what they are doing. They fix what is wrong instead of just replacing parts.
 
Thanks for the input guys. There is a shop in town that rebuilds them. I'm gonna bring it to them and see what's up. I know for a fact that 3 of the fins are bent inside the front casing and that can't be good.:(
 
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