i think something is wrong with either my battery or alternator. compared to my mustang, my i30 has crappy power. i could leave my system on in my stang with the car off forever (stock battery), now the same system in the i30 will kill my car after like 10 min with the car off. same with the headlights, the car wont start if the headlights are on with the car off for like 4-5 min.

when the car is on at idle, the system will make all my lights dim bad, including the headlights. never did that in the stang with the same exact system and loudness.

also, when i put my foot on the brake when it is in park, all this lights will dim for a second, sometimes it does that with the turn singals too.

is this normal for these cars?

 

How big of a system are you running? Give some detail about what you have.

SuDZ

 

http://www.streetdreams.com/install/...tang1998a.html

pics here under i30 audio:
http://www.brendanmcdowell.com/pictures_main.htm

 

Nice pics...I like the girl pics...Anyway, depending on how you wired it; I think you may have a really weak battery. Does your alternator light light up at all even momentarily?

 

no, i have never seen anytype of battery or alternator light come on during any of this.

 

Maybe it is low and not tripping the light? I would consider taking the car down to Autozone or something of the sort. They give free altenator and battery tests there. Takes about ten minutes but they will let you know if it seems like not enough charge getting though.

SuDZ

 

maybe a farad cap or an optima battery ... but of course this is after the test results

 

I doubt that it's the alternator for one reason: if you are pulling that much juice that it's making the car strain, it would probably make the car die first. The alternators in our cars are rather beefy compared to others around, but if you run the a/c, power windows, lights, fogs, defroster, and a heavy duty sound system it's going to strain the alternator anyway you cut it. I would suggest the same thing, go get the charging system checked (batt and alt.) and then go from there. More than likely it's a very weak battery. Remember, the alternator basically runs your electronics while the car is on AND also charges the battery back to where it needs to be. If you have a very weak battery, the alternator is going to divert a lot of it's juice to try and get the battery back to specs and not have very much reserve to run all you are possibly asking it to.

If all that is ok, then you must have a bad connection in your system that is causing way too much drain on the charging system. Let's hope it's not that because you will have to spend a lot time backtracking to find the problem.