As I was driving home from work today the battery light, brake light, and anti lock brake light all came on. The car drove fine and started fine. The one odd thing was that as I was getting near home (my drive lasted about 1 hour due to traffic) the radio would cut out if I hit the brake pedal. The battery, brake, and abs lights also got increasingly dimmer as time went on. If i put the turn signals on the 3 warning lights would fluctate with the signals. All this indicated to me that something in the charging system was not working - battery made the most sense to me. I got home and checked the battery - it is from May 05. It was a little low on water but not all that bad so I topped it off. The terminals were pretty corroded so I got out the wire brush and cleaned them off. I also checked the output with a multimeter - it was around 12.5V. After all that I tried starting the car but nothing happened - the positive terminal was a little loose (to get it tight I really had to push it to the very base of the post). After I got that tightened I started the car and ran it for a bit - the same battery, brake and abs lights were on. I then trickle charged the battery for 30 minutes (battery gave off over 13V while charging, after disconnecting the battery it gave 12.8V). The same 3 lights still came on. Is my battery still low? I checked the battery on my other car that was sitting next to it in the garage and it was about 12.5V (although it hasn't been run in a few weeks). Any thoughts on why I'm having this problem? (not sure why all 3 lights came on - I do see that there are fuses for the abs system that are tied directly off the positive battery cable, I made sure to clean that connection too)
dammit, was hoping that wasn't the case. guess I'll pull it out and get it tested. kind of a bitch to get to the alternator in that car
was my first guess after reading the first line... I have a tester that tests your alt, batt and starting system... btu I am in Jordan and I will be at work all day
that is one area subaru wins. i had to change the aternator on my wife's legacy last january. unfortunately it died 2 minutes from home at a friend's house. so i got to go change it the next morning in the street. it was -25. fortunately it was sunny with no wind. took about 45 minutes because i had to stop every few minutes and sit in the other car to warm up.
Some shops have mobile testing units that can be wheeled to the car to test the alternator in situ. I feel like I've seen this done at the Autozone in Richfield, but I'm not 100% on that.
Start up the car and check the voltage at the battery, that will tell you. You should be 14+ with the car running and I bet you are sitting at battery voltage or less. Russ
We did check while it was running, high 12's I think, definitely not 14V. Wasn't thinking very clearly yesterday when I was working on this (sat in stop and go traffic for 3.5 hours prior) - should have figured this was alternator
These are easy to replace. There is one bolt on top on the adjuster and one big bolt underneath that it pivots on. You may have to take a radiator fan off, but this is an easy fix.
On the SE-R and the G20 it's easiest to pull the radiator entirely! Alternators may be easier on the Subarus, but I can change spark plugs way faster in the Nissans Actually, this afternoon I'll be bleeding the radiator on the G20, trying (most likely fruitlessly) to bleed the brakes on the K1500, and if I get a chance, doing some accessory wiring on the G20 (radios (CB & HAM), fog+driving lights & keyless entry).
found an alternator at advance auto (only place in the twin cities that had one), I'll go get it tomorrow after I pull the old one off so I don't have to go back for my core now that I think about it, I've been getting an occasional noise on start up from something driven off the belts - probably the alternator lol
I wouldnt trust the alternator test at VatoZone or the like. I went through a few alternators on my GVR4 before i got it right with a rebuilt core..
A lot of rebuilts are very, very poorly rebuilt. Autolite brand comes to mind as a particularly bad one. Typically what they do is replace only components that have failed, rather than a full rebuild. Commonly the components that pass (and so are left when they're rebuilt) fail in short order, especially when they see more load due to the replaced parts. Sometimes you need to watch out for units that are considered interchangeable, but really aren't. For instance, the B13-B14 Sentras with the SR20DE came with an 80A Hitachi alternator. There is a Mitsubishi with the same dimensions and 80A rating, and most rebuilts are actually the Mitsubishi. But the alternator is mounted right freakin' next to the exhaust manifold and the heat kills the Mitsu alternators in the space of just a few weeks of average driving, while the Hitachi can last years. Anyhow, I hope the alty carl picked up at Advanced is a good unit and fixes things.
