I think my alternator is near dead, need help..

[black99gt]

I believe my alt. is near dead now.. For the past couple weeks my car has been getting harder to start everyday now.

Today when i started it in the morning, car looses power and slowly cranks... I get it started and go to work. Come out from work, and im LUCKY i got the car started!

I have a system that does draw some power. I have 2 amps and 2 10's. NO lightning cap :(

What do you guys think? I know for a FACT tomorrow my car is NOT going to start... good thing i have my bike to ride to work instead :thumbs:

[Tonyyank]

Have you checked all you connections...mine can lose one time!!!

[Brad]

Hey Black,
It could indeed be the alternator, especially if it's had a heavy load to carry from the additional equipment. But, have you considered the battery as well? If you have a volt meter, hook it to the battery terminals and read the voltage with the engine off. A good battery should hold about 12.5 volts or so. IF you can then keep the voltmeter there and have someone start it, watch the meter and see if the voltage rises to somewhere around 13-14.5 volts. If it rises and stays there, it's likely the alternator is ok. This is not a perfect test as it's a test of voltage and not the actual amperage/current delivered to the battery by the alternator. It's just a fast and dirty check. If the alternator is not charging the battery, it certainly will run it down after a bit and it will be hard to start as you mentioned. But.. if the battery is bad and not accepting the charge from the alternator, you could have the same symptoms. My sons' GA suddenly shut off on him along the road. We thought ... bad alternator. Well, it ended up that the battery died outright and his alternator was ok. You might want to try and recharge the battery, run it to Autozone or Sears and have a free system check done. Good luck! Brad

[black99gt]

Originally posted by Brad
Hey Black,
It could indeed be the alternator, especially if it's had a heavy load to carry from the additional equipment. But, have you considered the battery as well? If you have a volt meter, hook it to the battery terminals and read the voltage with the engine off. A good battery should hold about 12.5 volts or so. IF you can then keep the voltmeter there and have someone start it, watch the meter and see if the voltage rises to somewhere around 13-14.5 volts. If it rises and stays there, it's likely the alternator is ok. This is not a perfect test as it's a test of voltage and not the actual amperage/current delivered to the battery by the alternator. It's just a fast and dirty check. If the alternator is not charging the battery, it certainly will run it down after a bit and it will be hard to start as you mentioned. But.. if the battery is bad and not accepting the charge from the alternator, you could have the same symptoms. My sons' GA suddenly shut off on him along the road. We thought ... bad alternator. Well, it ended up that the battery died outright and his alternator was ok. You might want to try and recharge the battery, run it to Autozone or Sears and have a free system check done. Good luck! Brad


AWSOME! Thanx man. I will run there tomorrow and have them check it out for me... I might have an Optima in my future hehe. I KNOW the battery went dead over winter and i had to throw a cheap charge on it..


Although my car is a 99 and HAS alot of miles on it too :o

[Rba007]

John
Mine was doing the EXACT same thing. It was my battery, and an optima red top battery took care of it for me...

[iceman]

Faststeve had this problem... The alternator being bad in turn killed the battery. Our delco's are not made to be totally discharged and re-charged.... So a failing alternator slowly kills the battery too :(

Definitely get a DMM on that, see what you are reading when the car is on. It should be 13.8ish. Also give your battery terminals a good cleaning and DISCONNECT THE SYSTEM for now!!!

[Tomato]

GM altenators suck harcore, my buddy has become so used to GM aletenators failing on long trips he has a spare in the trunk of his GP.

[armith]

Try this one on for size! How about started car this morning and it was being a b****h but finally kicked over voltmeter gauge was reading about 13.2 put the car in gear and the car died.. I'm talking stalled and absolutely no juice.. no lights, no gauges, no odometer, no anything! Car wouldn't click over nothing.... get it jumped and I had juice but was only sitting around 11.8 and everytime I would try to turn it over and back to nothing.. so power inside the car.....

Jumped the car and got it running would put on the head lights or something and car would die completely again.... well after some moving and trying to run straight off of my 91 GA's battery I got the car to run.. hooked up the battery again and now its running ok... be heading to AZ here to have a check done on electrical system... but when the car is running I'm running like 14.2 all the time now... So what you think.. Battery, Alt, wiring, chair to steering wheel interface???

[CDW00GT]

Loose or bad battery connection on the battery posts? Just a thought.

[red rocket]

What's it cost to get the alternator replaced? Is it a significant amount of labor charges?

[SilverGA2001]

Originally posted by Tomato
GM altenators suck harcore, my buddy has become so used to GM aletenators failing on long trips he has a spare in the trunk of his GP.

Ouch, that's not cool. I'd rather not end up doing that anytime... ever...

[Mike Jung]

Originally posted by red rocket
What's it cost to get the alternator replaced? Is it a significant amount of labor charges?
I had mine replaced at dealer under extended warrenty end of last May.

The labour was billed at 36 minutes.

But the GM OEM AC Delco (I think re-built) alternator costed $400CDN / about $255US wtf (that's with the $75CDN / about $50US core return rebate) :eek:

[Macleod52]

Originally posted by Mike Jung

I had mine replaced at dealer under extended warrenty end of last May.

The labour was billed at 36 minutes.

But the GM OEM AC Delco (I think re-built) alternator costed $400CDN / about $255US wtf (that's with the $75CDN / about $50US core return rebate) :eek:

OUch that's expensive! I don' thtink it's that high! I think I got one for my ex's 95 corsica for about $130-150? No more than $175 I know that much and it had a lifetime warranty!!! I don't know how much more if at all an alty would be for the GA's but yeah. $225 seems kinda steep!