my car started dying on me today at a red light. i noticed that the radio would start to check in and out then i looked over at my vafc and i see it spasming.

anyway i thought my battery was running low so i killed the headlights and it was fine. i drove for another 5-10 minutes heading to get some food and then back to my girls house.

fast forward 4 hours later. im about to go home and i can't start my car. car tick's so i get a jump. car would start but then i check my vafc and read that the battery is only holding 9.0 volts. I'm thinking wtf so i try and limp it home but i end up dying just around the corner. so i call my brother up and tell him to bring jumper cables. so from there to my house is only about 2 miles away. i ended up having to get my car jumped no less than 5 times. i would only make it a block away each time before it'd take a **** on me. and each time i would get a jump the vafc wouldn't break 13 volts. 12.8-12.9 but no 13.0


so im thinking my alternator is ****. anyone have similar experiences?

i recently swapped the motor and did a semi wire tuck but it was running fine for a week or so now its problematic. i didn't cut any of the wires i just rerouted them so i don't see why anything would cause this problem. im going to try and find a friend to loan me their alternator for a day if not get my alternator tested at a rebuild shop. hopefully it will be free of charge. any help would be greatly appreciated.

this was on my 96 civic with b16 motor

 

testing is free!

 

Battery voltage with car off 12.6V and battery voltage with car on usually around 13.5V. Your alternator is not charging you're battery.

 

update. i was reading on honda-tech and some topics came up about people with the same problem. turns out it was my ground wire. i had hooked it up to the frames around the glove i guess that was'nt good enough so i moved the battery behind the seat and grounded it to the seatbelt on the body of the car itself. works like a charm now.