For some reason the other day while driving my car, it would suddenly feel like it was missing and then the check engine light would come on for a few seconds then go off. My tach was also going all over the place so I thought it was my ignitor. I replaced the ignitor and it did the same thing. So I drove my car to work today and slowly I noticed that my lights were getting dim, and my wipers were going very slow even on the full speed setting. After work I made an attempt to get my car home, and it was even worse. If I turned on my lights the car would shut off, my radio wouldn't come on, the tach wasn't working, and it almost died at a light after idling a bit. I was able to limp it home, but something definetly needs replacing.

I'm 95% sure this is the alternator, but I'm not 100%.

Input? Figures this would happen a few days before school starts and my only ride (GF) goes up to her dorm.

 

Im willing to bet its the alt, if you have another one laying around toss it in. I had to drive my car for like 3 weeks to school w/o an alt. so I had to charge the battery every day and hope that it didnt die.... MPG sucked too.

Blaze

 

Yeah, sounds like an alternator going to ****... How much voltage is it putting out? If you don't have a guage, use a multimeter.

 

Ok well I just bought one from Autozone, so I'll update the situation once I get it off the car...

 

same excat thing happend to me alt died and battery was going dead so replace the alt and charge the battery and you should be good to go

 

Update!

Well I went to autozone right before they closed and picked up an alternator. The part # matched what I had found online, and bolted it in right away. I didn't have any problems but I failed to realize that for some reason the pully stuck out about 1/4" too far. Driving back from my girlfreinds house, the belt quickly snapped and I was barely able to drive back to my house on my battery alone. I went back to autozone and checked the part #, and I had indeed purchased the right one, but for some reason it wasn't the same as the one off my car. I purchased another Duralast and made sure it was exactly like my Core. I complained to them about giving me the wrong alternator and they gladly refunded my money even though it technically wasn't their fault (the alt. had the right part# sticker slapped on it).

All in all, this past week has sucked, but I'm glad my car is running again. Lesson learned...absolutely make sure they are giving you the right part before you buy it...

 

measure the voltage at the battery while the car is running should be ~13.8VDC if all is well