BAD Day...

Tech_Greek

Registered User
Can my life get any better with this damn car?

I go to start it on Friday and it starts fine - let it warm up then go to back out of the driveway however when I start to make a turn it makes a creaking noise, almost like fingernail against black board type of sound; I then pulled back into the driveway killed it and took my Galant this weekend.

The weekend goes by, I have my fun and forgot ALL about the damn creaking noise and I went to start it tonight and guess what?

My car is STRUGGLING to turn over! It fires and I shrug it off to the under-drive pulley and go to MickeyD's (at which point that horrible noise came back to haunt me) - came home, ate a little bit then my room mate asked me to move my car.

Go to start it up, nothing - the lights turn off when I try to start it and the battery is basically dead (I barely had enough juice to close the moon roof).

SO, here I am, completely broke because of the battery, tires, UCAs, and maintenance that I've had to perform out of the blue because it hasn't gone so well with the car and all of this starts to happen.

At this point, I'm ready to either sell the thing, or take it out to a field and light the son of a *i@#% on fire and watch it burn.

Time to pour even more money into it...

1) The battery is brand new - I'm guessing this means the alternator isn't charging right (which I'm going to try to test tomorrow, but I doubt it will even start to have him test it, so I'm assuming its bad).

2) The rack does this noise whether the car is off or on - so I know its not the pump. Are there bushings or something that are known to go out? Every other bushing up front is pretty much shot so it wouldn't surprise me if there is bushings that I don't know about; once I start going in the car and I'm not anywhere near slow speeds it no longer makes the noise - could it be the bushing?

[ RANT OVER ]
 
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You need to have someone turn the wheel with you outside the car listening for the location of the sound. Could be just a bad ball joint or tie rod.
 
I know for a fact that the majority of bushings are bad - the LCAs in the front are worn but not to where its metal on metal BUT the end links are.

To me it feels like when you go over one of the |-\ part in the pinion (the hump on the rod I guess) that it pops, like its got a little bit of resistance and it snaps back and hits metal on metal (can't really see anything as its very late).

What about the alternator? Just seems like that's what it is? I removed the alarm, etc there's nothing left aftermarket at all.

A few symptons I noticed right before I hurried home was that my ABS Light started to blink, then the Trac Control at the same time, then my AC started throwing out error codes and I could hit the gas a little bit and it would be fine (like nothing was getting the voltage it needs)...then it wouldn't start so to me it feels like an alternator problem.
 
Altenator

thats what it seems to be in my opinion!!!!

I believe that i have an extra one laying around that you can get cheap plus whatever shipping would be if you are interested.

Tom
 
I'm very interested in it but when I say I'm broke - I'm flat broke.

Looking for anything in particular that I might be able to trade you? If not I'm just going to have my wife take me to work for the week until I get paid on Monday.
 
About the creaking noise...turn your wheels to the left, note the noise it makes. Now turn your wheels to the right...is the noise different?
 
I'm going to try and replace the LCA's and R&P Bushing first before I get crunk on the subframe...

To me, it seems logical that it only happens when metal hits metal (bushing being screwed).
 
I'm going to try and replace the LCA's and R&P Bushing first before I get crunk on the subframe...

To me, it seems logical that it only happens when metal hits metal (bushing being screwed).

If you can afford it, why not repace tie rod ends as well.
 
So for some reason my alternator is charging today after I jumped the car off it works fine.

Me suspects short somewhere in the system - possibly from the ghetto rigged head unit in the console.

I let my Galant fully charge the battery on the Thunderbird before disconnecting the cables to keep from stressing out either alternator.

Confirmed that the popping noise has to do with the lower suspension somewhere and not the rack and pinion.
 
Take that back, its dead - started to die on me going down the road...

Stuff started to flip off, the trac control, ac, etc all started to shut down until it got to the point where it was about to die (luckily I made it up to the driveway and parked it).

My lights would dim and brighten (along with everything turning on and off) based on the RPM, at idle it wont charge the battery obviously and it was running off the alternator.
 
Alternator for sure,sounds like a bad rectifier bridge letting the current run until it's dead.
Had the same noise in mine and i'm quite sure it's a ball joint,see which side is louder for which one it is.
 
It only happens when turning left at idle and even then its far and in between.

Checked with an old cell tester, one of the cells in the brand new interstate battery is bad - ironically its the same cell that died on the last battery.

Whats the cause of this? The alternator? To keep replacing batteries is going to get expensive quick!

To clarify the car WOULD keep running off the alternator alone, but will not start...so I don't think its the alternator and after seeing the bad cell I'm convinced that something else is going on.
 
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Whats the cause of this? The alternator? To keep replacing batteries is going to get expensive quick!

To clarify the car WOULD keep running off the alternator alone, but will not start...so I don't think its the alternator and after seeing the bad cell I'm convinced that something else is going on.

Batteries should be replaceable under warranty.
If you don't have a functional battery, the car won't start. Doesn't matter the state of the alternator.

Check the alternator when the car is running with a volt meter. If the voltage is much over 14.3v with a fully charged battery, you likely have a failed regulator module in the alt.
 
Oh we got the car started when we had it jumped off, just won't hold a charge.

They won't replace it because I lost the receipt...lesson learned DONT pay cash for something like that.
 
i dont know if there is any out there but i work at ntb and we can test everything in the battery charging system with a little handheld computer that hooks to the batttery, it will test the cca in the batter, a starter test, and a charging test, i think we charge like a penny to test it out!! Im sure some other similar will test it also, another thing im pretty sure autozone will check it for free with a similar hand scanner!! Something to try if you can get it started and running that long
 
Well I know for 100% that the battery is bad, only one cell failed, but if failed miserably.

I think it had to do with when my tire popped I curb checked the rear end pretty hard after the rear end slid out from under me, so I mean, it could have just broken the plate then - who knows.

Either way, I'll be buying a new battery either today or on Monday and then I'll get Autozone to do a load test on the alternator and see what we come up with.
 
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