hey pplz,

i have a 98 accord v6? i was driving on the highway when all of a sudden my high
beams came on(this is at nite) and the battery icon was on and flashing, then my abs light also came on, my car started acting funny and my rpm indicator is down,
also the fuel gauge was also down, and the HOt and Cold indicaor was down but my car was still driving normally. lucky for me i was just by my house. i opened the hood and check all the battery connections and its all ok. then i used Digital voltage meter to test is the battery is ok and it is. then i plugged in a scanner then a code popped up, which is P0130 o2 sensor malfuncation bank 1 sensor 1? after all that like 15 minutes later, i turned the car on the battery icon is gone. and the car is running fine? whats up this! can any help me please!!!

 

Low voltage or bad grounds can cause all kinds of screwy problems.

First, check your battery cables. Loose, dirty, or corroded at either end? Don't forget to check where the cable itself attaches to the clamps.

Also, a DVM isn't a complete way to test a car battery, you need a load tester.

Don't have a load tester? After the car's been OFF for hours, measure the battery voltage. Then turn on your headlights, blowers, stereo, windows, whatever... Measure it again (engine still not running). How much difference? Watch the battery voltage WHILE someone cranks the starter. How much did it drop?

Measure the battery voltage with the engine running. Now turn on everything you can. What's the voltage difference?

 

ya i test the battery and it came to 12.85 volts with out engine running then i turned on the lights and all the accerioes and the voltage was 11.77. i also checked for corroded terminals and loose connection but everything seems to be good condition. why would i get a P0130 code (o2sensor ) with this current problem. thanks

 

You said your battery light was flashing, ABS light, & other flaky stuff. When there's so much stuff that should be unrelated, I usually suspect electrical issues. Low voltage or bad grounding can make the ECU throw all kinds of errors that aren't really there. Often the official troubleshooting procedure starts out by clearing the code & waiting to see if it comes back.

With all the stuff turned on, it drops more than a volt. That's not really bad, but not qood either. It's possible your battery is beginning to die. Maybe it had a little "episode" which caused all that stuff.

Try your voltage check again, but don't put the meter probes on the battery posts. Put the (+) probe at the big main fuse in the fusebox & (-) on a good clean body ground. If this reads different than before, you've got excessive resistance in the battery cables.

Checking the voltage with the engine running (with & without loads), will tell if your alternator is weak.

 

Sounds like you have an alternator failing. Charge voltage will drop and cause ABS indicator to illuminate due to low source voltage while driving. I'd start with testing the alternator under load.

 

Yeah I was thinking alternater.

I'm just throwing this out there, I'm not an electrical guru...I know alternater generates AC and the rectifyer (sp?) converts to DC and if it gets stuck between cycles it stops charging and can actually discharge the battery. Would a stuck rectifyer or unconverted AC cause crazy stuff like that? I can't say I've heard of alternaters slowly going out I thought it was pretty much all or nothing. Also what if he had a temporary voltage spike, and again would it be alternater related?

 

I don't think rectifiers can go out like that. Getting stuck between cycles? It's just a handful of big diodes. Think about AC being a sine wave. Now take 6 sine waves laying on top of each other & cut off the part going below the center line. What you get is a sorta constant voltage, with a ripple.

If one diode in the rectfier bridge goes out, that's like 1/6 of the alternator's total power is lost. Not only that, the waveform isn't so smooth. With one of those waves missing, the ripple has a big chunk missing every 6 waves. That reduces the output of the alternator. It also makes electrical noise, but the battery acts like a big filter for it.

It's not easy to measure (at home) the missing power, but a shop can use an oscilloscope to see the output. That missing chunk from the power curve indicates a bad diode.

Other things that can go wrong are worn-out brushes. The alternator will occasionally quit making power for a few seconds, getting worse until the brushes never make contact. Then there's the voltage regulator, a solid-state device that can screw up in a few different ways.

 

the weird thing is it happens when i drive like 10 minutes into it. now all the guages starts to flucuate up and down quickly even the speedometer but the car just drives fun like nothing is wrong with the engine. could it be the voltage regulator cuz last nite everything started to luminate very bright in the dashboard allow to much voltage trough causing spike vaoltage. also it does this for like 10 -30 second then the porblem goes away like nothing happened. there are no codes currently present too.

 

Yeah, it could be the regulator. I'd suggest having someone use a scope to watch the alternator's output. But see about doing this when it's hot from driving. Sometimes this stuff doesn't screw up until it's good & hot.

Maybe a load-test of the alternator might not really be good enough to show the problem. I don't know what a voltage regulator costs. If it's cheap you can just try it & see.

 

just for kicks you could take the alternator belt off and see what happens (i doubt you need AC in the winter)...

obviously don't drive it too long and make sure the battery is charged but see if it acts as it should

 

naw its ok i think i leave that belt on i aint trying to mess up anything u know
anyway thanks for yall help pllz

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 2fast2accord420 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">naw its ok i think i leave that belt on i aint trying to mess up anything u know
anyway thanks for yall help pllz</TD></TR></TABLE>The point is, you're doing this to see whether it's the alternator or not. During the day (no headlights) you can drive around for 1/2 hour or more without the alternator belt. We're not saying that's how to fix it...

If it screws up during that time, you KNOW it's not the alternator, or voltage regulator (which is part of the alternator). The game is trying to eliminate one thing or another from suspicion.