I just found out my alternator went bad. I found out the hard way. I was drivin to work today. I'm sittin there (in heavy traffic) listening to the subs pound away...I flipped on my lights cuz it was gonna storm and when I looked down at the Gauges I noticed that the lights weren't very bright and then I noticed that my tach needle was bouncing...a lot. So I tried to keep the car going by revving it up (I don't know how that would have helped) But it died in the middle of Highway 66 in claremore. It was wonderful!
I was just wondeing if i'm gonna have to spend a lot of money on a new alternator, and I plan on replacing it myself. Is that too much for a Maxima ? Thanks for any help

 

ouch i think they are around close to 200 bucks and its pretty easy to change some basic hand tools you should be able to do it in an hour

 

what is the test to see if your alternator is going bad? doesn't autozone check it for you? or can I just check something with my multimeter?

 

I'm not 100% sure how you are supposed to check thwm but a friend of mine had me start the car... he then pulled off the negative wire from my battery (brand new about 10 min. old) and the car died, then he told me that I fried my alternator

 

take it to autozone and a very helpful customer service representative will walk out to your car with you and test it for you.

 

that is one of the funniest thing I have heard in a long time!

thank you hectic...for the laugh!!! it's been a while since I laughed like that...

are there any characteristics? like test my battery and see if it keeps dropping over a weeks time? or will a failing alternator be different, like more intermittant, such as rpms at idle go up and down ever so slightly (have to put my face up to the tach though to see it bounce...as it does it very slightly) or when I press my windows up buttons and watch my headlights dim for the second...??

 

Mine is slowly dying, pulsing lights == bad voltage reg. Ordered a new one, hopefully will be replacing it by next weekend.

Also, remember, voltage at bat w/out alt == 12.6~ With alt, should be 14+.

 

You undoubtedly need new and REAL friends.

 

Abs olutely! But keep this one f-riend ONLY as lottery ticket filler: Somehow he did not burn u electronics... NEVER let her come near u vehicle again.

Lots cheaper is to get a 15$ gauge to see weeks before when its coming...

Pls. sEE THE future gauge at (2.)

 

that test his friend did is a valid and correct test for a bad alternator.
it's not the safest test, but it is accurate

 

Its as valid as russian roulette. One of six kills. Luckily here we are not in air, or Nuke reactor hall...

 

I have NEVER had a problem doing that.
it's the people who reconnect it without turning off the car first that have problems.
the only time I've ever seen a computer killed was when someone tryed to jump it backwards.
Heck my subaru survived that even. just blew the fusible links, which is their job!

 

Electronics safety features:

Fuses do not protect electronics from spikes, they're way too slow for that. Fuses are for shielding electrical components. Fuse may cut off in 100mS, but IC takes only 1nS to burn. Speed difference is about 1/1000.

Electronic IC's have diode arrays to protect them for spikes. If you burn one or few, that will no kill the IC gates. But u degrade the shield. Do that few times and then u have nothing but direct path to the IC gates. Next spike then kills the IC. World is full of info how IC shields work, take a look. Its been my job to take a look since -75...

Its like roulette, u may play that quite long, only some in your the ring will suffer from holes...

FSM gives a clear warning: Dont Do It. (not my o pinion)

But its all yours to do experiments.

Cars without computers, its ok. T-fords etc...

 

What Wiking said there..............

With the battery removed, the alternator's regulator effectively has to rely on the load of the electrical system of the car to consume the generated current and develop a voltage drop accordingly that is measured by the voltage regulator - If you appreciate the number of inductive components found in the electrical system of the car (relays, pumps, motors, solenoids etc) and if you appreciate the effect an inductive load can have on a voltage regulator's output, (spikes, oscillations etc) you should consider yourself very lucky indeed if you went through this ill-informed experiment and never damaged the car's electronics.

Given the right sort of equipment operating at the time you do the experiment, you could also cause the alternator to fry even though it may have been perfectly OK to start off with (diodes spiked, regulator over-voltage)

The exact same cause you seem to indicate being the problem on reconnection may also blow the electronics/alt on terminal removal .........................

Most batt posts are of conical design - so in order to effect a "clean" disconnect, you are required to move the batt terminal/cable for a distance of about 20 mm with barely a mm worth of clearance between the post and the terminal .............................. and I don't know many/any people that will do that on a bet of $1000

 

Good notes. Expanding this issue to electronics overall: you have to be as careful as with any computer parts. Even with battery disconnected, you may fry one or more of the 'twenty' maxima computers. This can be done simply by having a hairy pullover on while working: fabrics create typically 4kV spikes, while electronics IC diode arrays can withold only .5kV at best.

Think about this, as u take u car in a shop: have u seen anyone using grounding wrist wraps ever, anywhwere? NO! And still that is the basic standard in any PC shop. --->The ultra LOW very basics... lol about stealership "maintenance" instant experts...

In any place handling electronics, the floor has to be specially conducting, people must wear ESD shoes and clothes for it, humidity has to be between 30-80% etc etc. How many car facilities handling electronics fulfill these basic requirements? lol.

If these requirement are not met, all electonics have to be packaged into ESD conducting plastic packaged specifially designed for electronics. They must be sealed, and tamper proof to shield off any instant expert... If an instant expert opens a package, the prodcut is defined as DOA, and scrapped.

Here is some of the VERY BASIC requirement in electronics business. And I mean BUSINESS, not hay hat doctoring.




.

Luckily the harness has capacity to eat most of these micro amp spikes, otherwise the vehicles would be absolute scrap after one service call.

...I will let no expert enter near my car.

 

Expert ...................... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

"ex" is a "has-been" and "spert" is a "concentrated drip"

 

And instantcoffee is somehow figuratively connected to instantexperts - stealership$ -world is full of 'em

Hmmm whata sperty world - Websters is confuzeus and says like this:

Suggestions for spert:

1. spurt
2. sprat
3. spirt
4. seaport
5. sport
6. sperm
7. spent
8. spero
9. spurts
10. Sparta
11. Sperry
12. spelt
13. spurry
14. sparrow

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionar...pert&x=10&y=13

 

The battery pulls the voltage down (since its the load), without the battery in parallel the voltage can shoot up very high, blowing all sorts of electronics that cannot handle it. So, the moral of the story is......... Don't disconnect any terminal on the battery when the engine is running.