I've noticed for the recent past that the clock my 99 I30 will brighten or flicker when I engage the turn signal. Is my alternator on its way out or is this just a bad voltage regulator which I believe can be replaced on the alternator. Any ideas? Check out the video to see what I mean

 

does it do differently with the headlights on/off?

 

Yes, I believe it only happens when the headlights are on. I will double check though.

 

If you have an autozone or something in your area they test alternators/batteries/starters for free, that's where I would start

 

there's a wire that controls the brightness of the light, and it is toggled with the headlights/corner lights. has anyone had your interior apart at any point? and yea definitely check the alternator and battery first

 

No, the interior has never been taken apart. We are the original owners. The odd thing is its not just the clock that flickers. It seems that at night the headlights will flicker too. Its been doing this for several months now. During the day with the headlights off, it won't flicker. Just when the headlights are turned on.

Back when I owned my 1995 Maxima, it did the same thing when I bought it. The car did it for months and months and the alternator did go bad. But I wasn't certain the two issues were related or not.

 

Well if you wanted to try something cheaper than buying an alternator, you might try replacing the headlight stalk (just with a junkyard one) but i think that alternator needs some testing

 

I had a similar problem. Check that your electrical connections from the positive battery terminal to the fuse block behind the battery are all clean (ie no corrosion or oxidation). Take them all apart and clean them to make sure they have good clean connections. Also clean the ground to chassis right behind the battery. I thought I had an alternator problem, but that wasn't the case. The power supply was problematic because of some corrosion and oxidation. That positive battery clamp has a lead that slip on and sends power to the fuse block right behind the battery. Clean all that up.

I thought my problem was my 1 year old Autozone alternator based upon what I read here. That was not correct. Once I cleaned up those connections my problems went away. Good luck. Rich