s6arface

I took my car to the toyota dealership to get my timing belt / water pump changed out. however, after doing so my battery light came on right at the dealership and they were closed the following day (on sunday). i dropped my car off on Monday, and spoke w/ the service manager there today and he said the battery is charging like it should be, and the alternator is working fine as well. he said the alternator may have a bad diod inside of it and it wanting to charge me $550 for a new alternator

I let him know that the light came on after they touched the car, and everything was working perfectly fine before hand. he said that well its a 116k mile car and it was just a coincidence

Any idea of why my battery light would come on after a timing belt / water pump change??

repugnante

Other than them pulling the terminal cable off the battery to work on the car. I don't see how they are connected. It very well could be that your alternator is going out. Go the cheaper route first and replace the battery. See what happens

s6arface

i have already replaced my battery last year with a megatron interstate battery. i know for a fact the battery is fine (and the techs at toyota have confirmed that).

GS4_Fiend

iTrader: (22)

Yep. Alternator aint cheap. Make sure battery is good before changing the alternator

s6arface

I was able to get him to make sure everything else is fine (I told him if the alternate doesn't fix the issue I won't pay for it and he better take it back out). So the service manager said they will do diagnostics all day tomorrow to make sure everything else is fine. Does anyone have any ideas of what it could be Beside the battery and alternator? Or does the battery light exclusively come on only for those two reasons?

s6arface

update: so the alternator was working fine. looks like an animal or something was chewing threw the wires at one point, and when they were taking out the timing belt and what not the wire got moved and caused a short in the line. they repaired the wiring and everything is working fine. i hope anyone that experiences this issue can get it resolved.

also, it does help a lot to stand your ground with the dealerships! you guys are great.

L3XOTIC

It definitely helps to stand your ground but IF that wire wasnt the issue, the dealer wouldnt had been liable. Glad its resolved.

handogg

how does an animal get under the hood to chew a cable ?

neegroy

iTrader: (19)

small mouse maybe? maybe one of the techs left some food there while they were fixing your car lol

Shagnasty

Same thing happened to my Tahoe. CEL on, code reading Evap. Turned out a rat chewed up some wires. fixed the wires and the light went off. Good thing was my rear dvd player started working again.