fhkhan_109

I have recently gone through the alternator failure in my 1998 SC400 with 118k. Couple of days ago, when I parked my car at my work in the morning, I saw the battery signal for a second or two just before killing the engine. I ignored as it never happened to me in the past 4 cars I had. In the evening while I was driving home, the battery sign came up, and I was in the interstate. My headlights were ON and this time the sign is steady. Within 10 seconds the ABS sign came up. I felt something was happening with the electrical system of the car. The CD changer was loosing power. I suspected that the alternator is not producing enough power for the car. Personally I am a researcher working with plug-in hybrid cars, and I design components for them. I was sure that the battery is not the reason. May be the computer or the alternator. Then I turned off the headlights, dimmed the dash panel light and turned off the radio. Just minimized the power consumption as much as I could.

I was able to get off the interstate. Drove through the local road and was looking for an Autozone. I managed to drive about 2 miles before I stopped completely in the Autozone parking lot. Before that, the car was loosing horsepower, the RPM went to zero, although the engine was running. The computer was loosing power. Started to misfire the engine and the car died at the Autozone. The last one mile was really scary becuase I felt that the transmission was failing, the engine was dying and I could be hit by someone from back.

However, the gentleman at autozone was extremely helpful. Tested the battery and the alternator. Said Battery is fine. Alternator was performing poorly at higher load. Strong indication that it had a problem. He charged my battery for 10 minutes, and I managed to come back home.

The same eveing, I searched in this forum, and verified the idea that the alternator is the culprit. I took it to the mechanic (by towing, as I did not want to take any risk by driving it anymore with only the battery power) yesterday, explained the situation and he also agreed that the this is because of the alternator. Replaced it with a Denso or Bosch, (I am not quite sure which one he finally found because he ordered them from some other place). I was lucky that the alternator died because of age, not because of the famous power steering pump leak. This alternator repair costs $375.00

Hope this helps to diagnose the alternator failure in your car. Cheers.