Just my night..

I ran into a problem tonight, my car died in town tonight. We got it up and running but still don't know what the hell the problem is...one guy says it might be the alternater because when I got into my car nothing was on, no lights no nothing. When I got home, i turned it off and again she died.

I know its not much info but thats all I can really say about it..ideas on what the problem is? I'll try to answer the questions as best as i can.

Hook a LED to the battery. See if its dim. If so. probably your alt.

sounds from just wat u said that it most likely is the alternator... or a bad battery. but seeing that u most likely jumped it....drove it home.... and still didnt charge the battery.... id say one of the 2 things...alternator or battery

take your alt of and goto autozone they test it for free. hell take the battery and alt...

Battery is fine. I am calling a guy tomorrow who works on my car..i'll see whats what. This kind of **** me off, I just got my car fixed. How much would this run me?

haha EXACT same things ben happening to me the past 2 days and my friends car come to think of it. Fixed it by replacing the -,+ terminal conecters, you know the ones you unbolt from the posts and also removing corrosion from any connecters that are conected there. Promise it will work

I would do as thesull says. Take your alternator and battery to one autozone and let them check things.

Let me get the crystal ball.

well an easier thing would be to test it yourself with a simple radio shack multi-voltage battery tester that's what i always use when i have battery troubles

thesull wrote:

take your alt of and goto autozone they test it for free. hell take the battery and alt...

If he can get it to run long enough to get it there...he could do himself a huge favor and just have them test the charging system on the car. Make sure you ask them if it's putting out enough amps. too,because some of those Dudes are lazy and won't bother checking it. I installed a Hi-output 200amp alternator on my Tahoe and I told them that I just didn't think it was putting out enough amps. So the Dude rolls the tester out to my ride,hooks it up,checks it,then proceeds to tell me it's fine,it's putting out enough voltage. I told him I know the voltage is fine,because I monitor it on my digital voltmeter. So what is the amperage? He tells me I don't know,I didn't check it. I told him that's why I'm here TO HAVE YOU CHECK THE AMPERAGE! Duh.lol

campbellsco wrote:

well an easier thing would be to test it yourself with a simple radio shack multi-voltage battery tester that's what i always use when i have battery troubles

You can't check amperage with those simple Radio Shack meters. Sure voltage is important,but if it's not putting out the amps,then a basic voltage reading isn't going to do you much good.

I don't think it'd be the alternator. The alt is what powers the car's electronics while you're driving, using power from the motor. If the alt fails, your car works until it runs out of battery power.

At least I think that's how it works. Don't mind me.

start it up and put a voltmeter on it and see what its putting out, should be 13-14ish if below that its the alternator. and they are easy to change so fix it yourself, dont pay guys like me to do something so easy cause we rip you off haha

Tat2Dragons wrote:

You can't check amperage with those simple Radio Shack meters. Sure voltage is important,but if it's not putting out the amps,then a basic voltage reading isn't going to do you much good.

Have fun frying your multi-meter. There's a difference between checking voltage and checking current. To check voltage you place two leads in parallel w/ the system you are trying to check. Assuming that the impedance of the system you're checking isn't close to the DMM resistance (usually around 10M ohm) then very little current actually flows through the DMM. If the system impedance is near that of the DMM, you can't accurately test on that DMM.

To check current, you place two leads in SERIES w/ the system you are trying to check (unless you have one of the more advanced meters that measure the magnetic field off the wire). If the current is too much (say 150A) and you try to send that through your DMM it will fry.

PwrRngr wrote:

Tat2Dragons wrote: You can't check amperage with those simple Radio Shack meters. Sure voltage is important,but if it's not putting out the amps,then a basic voltage reading isn't going to do you much good. Have fun frying your multi-meter. There's a difference between checking voltage and checking current. To check voltage you place two leads in parallel w/ the system you are trying to check. Assuming that the impedance of the system you're checking isn't close to the DMM resistance (usually around 10M ohm) then very little current actually flows through the DMM. If the system impedance is near that of the DMM, you can't accurately test on that DMM. To check current, you place two leads in SERIES w/ the system you are trying to check (unless you have one of the more advanced meters that measure the magnetic field off the wire). If the current is too much (say 150A) and you try to send that through your DMM it will fry.

this man knows what he is talking about. There is a lot of strange advice in this thread lol. I never want some of you to work on my cars lol.

If you keep killing the battery you might as well replace that too cause you are decreasing its life every time you do that. It will struggle this winter when it gets cold.

Aken wrote:

I don't think it'd be the alternator. The alt is what powers the car's electronics while you're driving, using power from the motor. If the alt fails, your car works until it runs out of battery power. At least I think that's how it works. Don't mind me.

While you are right on that. Alts don't always just die right out. My neon was having a problem and the alt was dying. But not fully dead. I could run the car all day and night. But it had problems starting. The alt was on its way out and the battery was shot. Replaced them both and been starting great ever since.

Drifting10 wrote:

haha EXACT same things ben happening to me the past 2 days and my friends car come to think of it. Fixed it by replacing the -,+ terminal conecters, you know the ones you unbolt from the posts and also removing corrosion from any connecters that are conected there. Promise it will work

You where right, cleaned off that nasty ****, and she started up like a charm..This was the first thing I did. I didn't feel like taking off the battery or the alt and taking it to Auto Zone

justinwebb wrote:

start it up and put a voltmeter on it and see what its putting out, should be 13-14ish if below that its the alternator. and they are easy to change so fix it yourself, dont pay guys like me to do something so easy cause we rip you off haha

I've seen/had a few alternators that put out enough voltage.So no checking voltage won't always tell you for certain if an alternator is faulty.

PwrRngr wrote:

Tat2Dragons wrote: You can't check amperage with those simple Radio Shack meters. Sure voltage is important,but if it's not putting out the amps,then a basic voltage reading isn't going to do you much good. Have fun frying your multi-meter. There's a difference between checking voltage and checking current. To check voltage you place two leads in parallel w/ the system you are trying to check. Assuming that the impedance of the system you're checking isn't close to the DMM resistance (usually around 10M ohm) then very little current actually flows through the DMM. If the system impedance is near that of the DMM, you can't accurately test on that DMM. To check current, you place two leads in SERIES w/ the system you are trying to check (unless you have one of the more advanced meters that measure the magnetic field off the wire). If the current is too much (say 150A) and you try to send that through your DMM it will fry.

No offence but you missed the key words,read again. Main words of importance are CAN'T and simple Radio Shack multimeter. I know theres a difference between checking voltage and current/amperage. It would of been quite obvious that I know the difference between the two by simply slowing down and reading my post a bit slower,instead of jumping right in trying pick through it. Oh and yes I do know how to check amps/current and that you can check current/amperage with a more advanced meter,just not with a basic/simple/cheapo Radio Shack meter,which was my main point.

It never hurts to check the ground cables out as well (not the end on the battery, the other end of the cable). Clean the engine-to-firewall strap, battery-to-frame cable and any others you can find.

I am cleaning that up tonight, I just hopped on Oz quick to see whats what..Plus I am about to eat. I am probably going to clean out my whole engine bay, wipe stuff down, clean out leaves, and any other junk.