Well.... heres my situation:

Sometimes (NOT ALWAYS), i would be driving normally with my system up, and of course depending on the time of day would determine if I had my lights on and stuff like that. Well, like I said, sometimes when listening to music, i can see the accessories dimming, but dimming to a point where they look like its gonna fade out completely. Usually withg a big system, you see lights dimming, and thats normal, but this isnt. The lights or anything that would be on would almost turn off. SOooo, I turn off my bass, thinking that would fix it, then my radio turns on and off by itself... It gets so bad, that when I press the brakes, you can see the drain of power. If I press any window switches, it will drain so much power. So I decide to get home ASAP and see whats going on. I turn off everything, lights, radio, a/c. The only thing on is the clock and the door lights, so with the windows already up, I press the window switches up again, to see how the car would react. I pressed the switch and the car was getting drained. I decided to hold the button and see what happens, eventually all the lights turn off, then the RPMs drop to 0, the car turns off, and there is no power. I can not restart the car, I had to pop the hood and jiggle the battery cable.
Now the weird thing is, then after jiggling the cable, the lights turned back on, I started the car, I did the same test, and everything was fine. What could this be???? I was told that the alternator was dying, but if it was, wouldnt this be happening all teh time, and not just sometimes? Earlier today my car was fine, tonight is going nuts. I also have an optima yellow top battery, so its not like my battery is weak.
Also, could this be a reason why my car is lagging so much? By laggin I mean that when I press the gas, the RPMs actually decrease, and get real low, before going back up (thats if it didnt shut off already). Thanks for the help!!

Devon

 

alternator

 

I'd guess alternator. Good thing you have a yellow top, as it should be able to be recharged with little to no affect.
When your alternator went, you were running off of the reserve capacity of your battery. Then it discharged to the point of being too weak to power things.
Just my guess.

Dave

 

thats deff the alternator. Something like that happened when I had my caddy. I was just driving and out of no where, my entire dashboard would go out, and the car was losing power when i step on the gas, the turn signal was clicking extremely slow, and my speedo stopped workin. Thats deff gotta be your alternator, I'd double check with your mechanic, just to make sure.

 

about the whole battery deal, (sorry i missed that part) maybe your battery terminals are old and weak, try cleaning the corrosion off of them and follow as much of the wire as you can to check for cracking, splitting, melting, anything of that nature. If there is any of that, replace it.

 

i would tryin cleaning the terminals first and then make sure they are really tight.cause thats what happened to me.if that doesn work get you alternator tested.

 

Well, like I said, I just got a brand new Optima yellow top! SO I think that the actual battery posts are fine...BUT, Ive been meaning to change the actual battery cables, since they do look kind of old, I guess know I have more of a motivation to do so. Thanks for all your help guys...please post more opinions!!!!

 

You have one of three problems that I know of:

a) battery - You replaced it recently so unless Optima is producing duds, that ain't it.

b) alternator - check it.

c) wiring.

Why wiring you ask? I recently had a crazy, crazy bunch of problems that nobody on the .org could diagnose. 3-4 seemingly random engine codes, transmission losing gears (automatic), overheating, etc. Sounds a little more serious than yours, but it could be worth checking if your alternator comes up fine.

My ground wires had 6 OHMS of resistance going through them, and it was shorting out the whole electrical system. Things would get bad readings, shoot engine codes, transmission computer went nuts, overheating system also went nuts, it was crazy. Needless to say, I got a hyper-ground wiring kit and it fixed EVERYTHING on the car. Improved throttle response, no more wierd electrical probs, even maybe a few horsepower.

 

Well, I figured it had somethign to do with the wiring or the contacts, cause when the car died, I jiggled the battery positive cable, saw a little spark, saw that all the interior lights were on, started the car, and everything was fine... hmmmmmmmm

 

The actual wiring of my car was bad on the grounds. The positive side was all (to my knowledge) fairly good, and since the hyper grounds kit doesn't upgrade any of the positive wiring, I'm assuming that it might not help you.

When I upgraded my battery, I had to upgrade the cable clamps in order to get it to attach to the optima correctly because the posts were so big. It's a pretty cheap solution, but I'd try to reproduce the results. If jiggling the positive wires before you start the car fixes the problems I'd definately invest $20 odd bucks to try and replace the clamps.

 

check the wiring harness. Its a known problem in 95's. I thought the alternator was the problem in mine but it turned out to be moisture seaping into the ECU.

The car's has been at the garage for two weeks (for body work and other modifications).

 

Well, Im leaning towards the facotry cables a lot, because since last night, I have not encountered the problem again.

 

Bump...... =X

 

Well heres an update, the same thing happened to me tonight on my way home from work. So intead of turning off the car or seeing how much power would die until the car would turn off, I left the car idling, with the parking lights on. I opened my hood and jiggled the Positive battery cable and made sure there was contact (the wire was loose cause I could turn it). I went back to the car, checked all the symptoms and pushed some switches, car seemed fine, I guess its time for new cables.