fog rewire causing alternator issues?
 

okay. my alternator finally crapped out this morning. this is my 3rd one within the last month from autozone, and I'm tired of changing them. I recently got fog lights in my car with 35w hids in them and rewired them the bumper light(edit: I've been thinking about switching them to the wiper relay instead). during the day I would normally use my fog lights for my daytime running lights. everything works just fine. I'm just curious if doing that rewire is making me go through alternators? from drawing too much current? at night I also run them with my hids on my high beams which are also 35w.(I have halogen for my low beams and 3000k looks retarded with standard halogen) so I have 35w fogs and 35w headlights. so only 70 watts of current as opposed to 120 with halogen. with 55w fogs, and 65w high beams. my fogs only draw 5.8 amps each. and I have a 100 amp alternator.


or is it because I have autozone remanufactured duracrap?

did you follow these directions? http://www.vqpower.com/v2/articles.php?article_id=31

with that rewire, the relay is still working, you are just changing the source of 12v that powers the relay on and for to turn the fogs on and off. if the bulbs were to draw too much current, you'd blow fuses not alternators.

arent our stock alternators 120 amp? clean your grounds. do you have any other electrical work done? radio, amps, lights, etc? anything powered by a toggle switch?

that's what I was thinking. I have an after market stereo deck. I believe only the SE models have the 120 amp. I have a kill switch that's a toggle switch. but that is only for the ignition wire.

but the funny thing is, this only started happening after I bought the fog lights. (my car didn't come with fogs)

HID's draw less current then halogen lamps.

They are not the cause of your alty failures.

That's what I've been trying to tell my friend. but he has the attitude of "I'm right about everything and will argue the same point until I win." and of course him going to UTI doesn't help...

he insists it's the wiring. but I'm telling him if it was, I would have a fire, a short, or blow a fuse. and neither of that has happened. am I right?

check everything from behind the radio to testing that ign kill switch install. make sure everything turns on and off as supposed to. load test your battery. it may not be able to recharge to full potential due to this being your 3rd alternator, that battery's probably seen better days.

[quote=styliztik;8157144]That's what I've been trying to tell my friend. but he has the attitude of "I'm right about everything and will argue the same point until I win." and of course him going to UTI doesn't help..quote]
I got bumped from my VW AUDI tech position by VW "certified" UTI grads that didnt know how to work on drum brakes (not an exageration). How much experience does he have? Check every connection for corrosion. Is you VC gasket leaking oil onto the alty? Its not uncommon to get crap rebuilds from the store.

+1 experience is everything. OP, ur friends attitude will get him nothing but damage claims with his ego. his attitude alone says he isnt ready to be in school for it. you go to school to learn, to admit you dont know **** and learn the fundamentals. sure, you can go to school with some knowledge but dont act like you know something.

The alternator should be a 110 amp unit, not 100. I think your problem is a bunch of junk alternators.

the battery is 2 weeks old. I replaced it for the hell of it because the battery I was on was 4 years old lol.

the kill switch and radio was put in over 4 years ago. I highly doubt that those have anything to do with it.

asand1: the VC gasket does leak, but VERY SLOW. I'm at 128xxx miles and my oem was still showing a little bit of the grey cover. but was black from oil and still worked until it finally crapped.

Okay so I took the alternator out and took it back to autozone. it took the idiots over there an HOUR AND A HALF to figure out how to refund me my money. and refused to refund me my core charge on top of it. I'm definitely writing a letter to corporate and NEVER going to autozone again. I took my happy *** to napa and bought a 120 amp alternator and installed it. so far so good. knocks on wood. I'm gonna drive for a while without my fog lights on just for a test.

I'm gonna bet that your problems are gone.

yeah keep us posted!

Hate to hijack, but would that rewire work for a 95? I notice it says 97-99, so I wonder if there would be a difference.

Living in the woods with no streetlights, I bet the little bit of extra light from the fogs would help with the high beams sometimes.

Of course the concept would work. The thing to be aware of is that Nissan changes the colors of the wires in the harnesses. So you have to work with both sets of schematics to make sure you are working with the correct wires.

I hope so Dennis.

I'll let you know. do you have hids in your fogs?

yeah they are hid's

Just rewired mine today...FWIW, the colors were the same on my '95. Have to head down some back road tonight and see the difference.