Just curious whether someone might can help me with a power loss issue that occurred yesterday.

I have a lengthy commute and in the afternoon drive home I get into a great deal of stop and go rush hour traffic. Yesterday about a fourth of the way in as I was slowing down the red battery light came on, the radio stopped, and interior lights dimmed, ie a general loss of power. As soon as I hit the accelerator all the power was restored. This occurred frequently the rest of the commute, but the loss of power became worse. There was never a hint that the engine was going to stall.

I assumed it was likely my battery going bad and that the car would likely not start this morning and I would jump it and get the battery checked. However, I had a full power crank. The drive to work does not have the stop and go, thus I only had to stop at a few red lights, and there was no power loss, until just as I arrived at work, the radio went off and came back on, but no battery light or anything like that.

Any ideas?

 

Loose or corroded battery terminals? I had something very similar to this happening over a long period of time in my previous car. I had replaced the alternator, battery, and starter. In the end it turned out to be that my main battery cable was slowly deteriorating and eventually just burned up.

When the car is running, it should be running mostly off the alternator, but when you are stopped at a light for example, it might pick up some off the battery. It could still be a failing battery, but the fact that you are experiencing this while running points more towards an alternator, belt, or regulator issue.

 

Adding to retro...watch this video.

 

+1 Exactly what I thought.

 

....alternator could be going bad also

 

Is your problem corrected?

 

Has anyone installed a grounding kit? I heard that it helps regulate better voltage for the car and help reduce power fluctuations that cause decreases in performance.

 

Some say they are scams. Check out this post which seems pretty well-informed.

Maybe we can get Retroplay to chime in.

 

Remember to keep it simple first...

That and it would be nice to hear back from the OP

 

To be honest, this is the first I have heard of grounding kits, but from the link you gave and the description from the seller, I might not call it a scam perse, but probably just a waste of money.

As for noise, you kill noise with snubbers and dampers which are circuits with a capacitor and a resistor. These require being installed as closely as possible to the device being affecting by the noise. Some people do use those in their audio systems.

The rest of the electrical systems in your car are specifically designed to handle any noise generated in the electrical system.

The vendor in that link mentions adding some grounding wire to every wire like to a sensor. Most sensors are resistive loads or differential signals with a matched impedance, so they are already noise resistant.

Now having said that, I disagree to only one degree with what the poster in that link mentioned. In a DC circuit that has analog signals in it, ground ROUTING is a big deal. You want the shortest path to ground (he's calling it a return - technically he is correct, but people know what you mean when you say ground in a system like that) from any sensitive components.

Before I get too technical, I'll leave it at this: It is ideal in a large electrical system to provide multiple and shorter paths to the chassis (which by the way is really a ground by definition because of its large surface area.) However every electronic component in a car already does this through the bolting to the frame or at the harness junction points.

Breaks in the chassis or joints that have oxidized and provide bad conductivity can create ground isolation. Now that would create problems. If I need to explain that more let me know, but it might be a little tedious and boring. Having a jumper across the joints to make sure they have no significant resistance between them could improve things. But really these are things you do to fix a problem, not improve.

The claims from the vendor in that link are more marketing than science.

 

Agree. I wasn't monitoring this thread because the OP wasn't returning. My assumption is that they already fixed the problem. It was 99% likely to be loose or corroded terminals.