TheBigGuy

something interesting happened earlier. It was raining outside and the windows were fogging up so i turned on the defroster for both the front and rear windows. The A/C was also on due to the humidity.

Anyway, after waiting ~10 minutes for my wife to come out, the battery light came on. Remember that the engine was running and idling @ ~600-700rpms. So when i noticed the battery light, i gave it a lil gas and it went away but not even a minute later it came back on and the dash lights (and everything else) dimmed.

Things that were on:
-headlights/foglights
-heater with A/C set at 72 degrees with the fan speed set at 3
-engine running at normal operating temperature

I did manage to drive it around for 2 or 3 miles (no battery light on). Parked it at home and turned off the engine for 5-10 minutes, tried starting it again and battery was dead. Had to jump start it...

Im gonna check the service records and make sure the alternator has been replaced recently but im really hoping it is just a drained battery.

Can anybody shed some light on this? Thanks

gqr1c3boi

my guess would be a bad altenator or battery. Even if it is a new altenator, it could just be a bad one in the batch. Same thing happened to me on my 4runner.

lxgs4

Sounds like your alternator is out. Make sure the power steering pump isn't leaking on the alternator. The oil will damage the alternator and cause it not to charge properly.

TheBigGuy

thanks ^^^ i will check on that tomorrow

btw, i just started the car 30 minutes ago (4 hrs after i had to jump start it) and it started without a problem

Chilkoot

the code for a (1st gen) dead alternator is every dashlight on. If it is the alternator, it's the first time I've heard of only the battery light being on.

if I had to wager, I'd say battery before alternator.

Itsumo

try this to check if you have a bad alt. when you start the car unplug the power cable from the batt. if the car shuts off its the alt. if the car keeps running it might be the batt. another way to check is to have a volt meter batt should be at 12.5 with the car off... with the car on it should jump to 13-14 volts

trukn1

Be willing to wager a bad battery. Normally with an alternator going out, you will get multiple lights on the dash at the same time. Could just be a bad one from the bunch. Take it out and have the battery bench tested at your local Autozone for no charge.

TheBigGuy

thanks for the help guys!! i havent really had time to check up on it since thursday but yesterday i noticed a few things:

-the Stereo deck lights dim/turn off before the battery light comes on
-The battery is drained only if the car idles for too long
----(i actually got pulled over last night which is when i noticed all this =P. no ticket tho!! thank god for my clean record!! woohoo!!)

-Next, if i idle too long and turn off the engine, it will need to get jump started
-if i idle long but before shutting off the engine, i rev the engine to about 2000 to 2300 rpms for a good 30secs to a minute, it will restart fine no matter how long its been sitting

which one do i take off the battery? positive or negative? (<-- im gonna assume negative??) and does that mean that if it still runs, then its running off the alternator indicating the alternator is still good?

Itsumo

ahh sorry for not posting that part... id take the pos off but im sure the neg would do the same as well... if the car does run yes the alt is running the car instead of the batt. if the car shuts off it means that it was running off of the batt power and the alt isnt charging

Chilkoot

take it to autozone and have them test your charging system. it's free and that'll tell you more than we can guess at.