Tuesday, October 25, 2011

My car battery refuses to hold a charge and the alternator does not seem to be giving enough voltage to it...?

I have changes the alternator, the battery, and the wires. Unfortuanetly, none of these resolved the problem of my battery continually dieing. Any other ideas?
My car battery refuses to hold a charge and the alternator does not seem to be giving enough voltage to it...?
When a load is placed on the alternator, such as recharging the battery, it is harder to turn. Therefore, a worn belt could be slipping and not turning the alternator fast enough. Tighten or replace the belt before any more tests and before buying any more parts.
My car battery refuses to hold a charge and the alternator does not seem to be giving enough voltage to it...?
Have you replaced the belt. If the belt is worn it may not being doing it's job.
#1. did you replace the alternator with a new one, from a junkyard, or rebuilt?

If your cars alternator died, its probably a common problem, so if you replaced it with one from the junkyard or rebuilt, it be faulty... its not unusual at all to hear of a rebuilt failing the day its installed.

#2. did you spend the money on a high quality battery, or a reconditioned unit?

once again, same thing, if you went with a reconditioned unit, it could already be failing.

#3. charge your battery with a charger, then drive normally, and if it dies again, start feeling wire connections, feel the battery terminals, if you can, feel the wires behind the dash... if any of them feel warm or hot, you have a short, or loose connection. this could easily kill a battery.

obviously, make sure you hooked up the alternator wiring harness... youd be suprised to hear some of the stuff people do..

#4. did you replace the alternator relay? this is probably the longest shot to diagnose a problem, but it may be worth a shot.
Ok, so if you drove in to an Advance Auto or AutoZone store and had them test the battery and charging system on the car (they do it in the parking lot at some locations), then you could get one more confirmation that you, in fact, have a good battery and alternator. In that case, I would next test the %26quot;parasitic current draw%26quot; from the battery. When you've parked your car for the night, there shouldn't be more than 1/4 ampere (250 milliamperes) of current being drawn from the battery as it sleeps in your garage. It's easy for you to check and see how much current is actually being drained from your battery when the car's parked by connecting a Digital Multi-Meter (DMM, $15 Sears) in series between a battery post and the cable you've disconnected from it. Make sure to first set the DMM to the 10 Amp scale. Don't worry about wire polarity, because you'll simply read either plus or minus Amps readings as you swap the wire leads. The main thing is to see if your reading more than 0.25 Amps (1/4 Amp or 250 milliamps). If you read something like One Amp or more, you've got a problem with something being on in the car that's drawing current when everything should be shut off. For example, is there a light on in the trunk that you can't see is on? Did you wire up your own alarm etc and not know it's drawing excessive current (amps)? Is the glove compartment lamp on? Is the hood lamp on? etc. Eventually, you can remove one fuse at a time from the fuse box to see if that stops the excessive current flow and locate the circuit causing the problem. Remember, you need to drive the car a couple times a week to keep the battery charged up too.

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