Help on fixing small(ish) problem

[fuzzylogic]

my battery for my 4age doesnt seem to be charging ie. if i run it for a while especially at night(lights on), turn it off then try and turn it back on again, it wont start. the sound is as if the battery is completed dead ie. no sparks. i have to manually charge it with a battery charger. i'm pretty sure its the alternator. i just want someone to confirm... cheer... also how much will an alternator for my engine cost and is it hard to replace?

[jondee86]

Hiya.... if the alternator is not charging, and you drive at night, you should notice the lights getting dimmer and dimmer, and the battery warning light should be on. Eventually, there won't be enough voltage to run the electrics and the car will just slow down and die

But if the lights are bright and all the electrics (indicators, wipers etc) are working normally, then it's a safe bet the alternator is charging. Cheers...

jondee86

[Bling]

tried a new battery, i had similar issues, it was the battey at fault,

[Rumad]

Any auto electrician should be able to do a free battery test for u...just drive in and ask that would be my guess, but if u have a multimeter handy, switch it to "12vdc" and connect it across your battery terminals with the car running with all accessories on...it should read between "13vdc" to "14.4vdc". Anything outside these ranges in either direction means u will need to get your alternator looked at....if so, get in touch with me, i can prolly do it cheap for ya

[fuzzylogic]

yeah, the thing is the voltmeter on my car reads below 14v. its about 12v even when the engine is running. i'm aware that it should read about 14 while running so i just wanna confirm that it is the alternator that needs replacing... how much will it cost to get it done?

[Loudtoy]

yeah, the thing is the voltmeter on my car reads below 14v. its about 12v even when the engine is running. i'm aware that it should read about 14 while running so i just wanna confirm that it is the alternator that needs replacing... how much will it cost to get it done?

I'd try and find a second hand alternator off someone who's wreckingone if i was you! Altrenators can be anywhere from $80 to about 350 to repair depending on what it is thats wrong with it! If you really think it's your alternator ( i doubt it i'l explaing shortly) take it off the car and down to your nearest auto sparky and they will test it for you!

Now the reason i doubt it is your alternator is
one - no charge light isn't coming up
two - your car actually runs fine once it's started
three - if your alternator was stuffed you wouldn't get any reading above 6 or so volts while it was running, which wouldn't be for very long if your alternator wasn't keeping things going. Also the voltmeters on the cars aren't always 100% accurate just normally pretty close!

Only know all this because my gf's starlie had the alternator crap out on it about a month ago and it wouldn't run very long without the alternator charging, once the battery was fully charged ( on a charger) it would run for about 10 minutes before just dying!
Also her car before that which had a crook battery ran sweet but if you turned it of and tried to start it again straight after there wasn't enough juice left in the thing to do it!

[slonlo]

dose it wind over at all or just click when you try and start it
could be a dodge concetion to the starter

[wde_bdy]

Hiya.... if the alternator is not charging, and you drive at night, you should notice the lights getting dimmer and dimmer, and the battery warning light should be on. Eventually, there won't be enough voltage to run the electrics and the car will just slow down and die

But if the lights are bright and all the electrics (indicators, wipers etc) are working normally, then it's a safe bet the alternator is charging. Cheers...

jondee86

Not quite right, the warning light only tells you if the alternator is actually charging. It does not tell you if the car is using more than the alternator is putting out. The warning light will not come on basically until the motor stops. An ammeter is very useful for letting you know the state of your charging system, negative means you are using more than your alternator is producing (in my case due to 400 watts of spotlights, foglights and a stereo setup).

Callum

[matt dunn]

Now the reason i doubt it is your alternator is
one - no charge light isn't coming up
two - your car actually runs fine once it's started
three - if your alternator was stuffed you wouldn't get any reading above 6 or so volts while it was running, which wouldn't be for very long if your alternator wasn't keeping things going. Also the voltmeters on the cars aren't always 100% accurate just normally pretty close!

I am an auto sparky and so can say..

The alt light will not always come on when the alternater shitz itself and on these toyota tpye it is actually very common for the light to not come on as the regulator stuffs up.
Most cars will run fine once the car has started with no alt running as the battery will have more than enough power to run the car even though it wont have anywhere near enough to start it.
And for your info a fully charged battery sitting there may only read 12.5v and a dead flat battery may still read as high as 12.0v as a voltmeter is not an indication of how charged a battery is.
If you get less than 13v at the battery when the car is running then it is not charging.

[fuzzylogic]

dont worry guys fixed it... cheers for all ur responses. ran all day today no problems...

[matt dunn]

dont worry guys fixed it... cheers for all ur responses. ran all day today no problems...

So how did you fix it? What was the problem in the end?

[fuzzylogic]

just the alterntor. it was completely burnt out. the plastic things holding the brushes were melted and the brushes were burnt. whole thing was $&#$%.