The car idles at around 2k rpm's upon startup (who knows why!) but when it gets warmed up a little, after about a minute and a half, the battery light will come on (alternator??). So I took it down the road in an angry rage, because it seems to be one thing after the other, and banged a few gears, bounced 'er off of rev limiter thru second, and came up to a stop sign, expecting to see the battery light come on at idle. Oddly enough, it didn't come back on; wipers worked at normal speed again, seatbelt retracted at normal speed as well. It almost seemed as though something "broke free" when I got on it . . . This was 2 days ago, and I have started the car about 9 times since then. It has done the same thing 3 or 4 of these times and I have remedied the problem the same way, and so far, it has worked. I'm pretty sure that I will eventually have to replace the alternator, but I am posting to see if anybody has had any weird s*** like this happen to them . . . To top it off, I popped a CEL this morning, but it went away and stayed off after 1 reset of the ignition. So I got the old paperclip out and checked the code an hour ago, it's a CEL code 4 - CKP (crankshaft position sensor). My question is, could this code have anything to do with the alternator problem, maybe attributed to the lack of voltage at one point or another to that sensor?? ANY ADVICE WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!

 

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The CKP sensor in your car would be in your distributor. Try another good dizzy if you can. For your alternator to test if its still good. Start the car and take off your positive connection on the battery. If the car dies then yes its your alternator. If it doesnt then your alternator is fine. I had the same issue with CEL 4 did everything and no luck. Checked my main harness and there was a broken wire on one of the stupid pins. Re wired it and its been golden since. Yes i meant one as in not the whole pin wire but 1 single little wire of the 1 pin wire itself. LOL hope that makes sense.

 

yeah, putting a new alt. in tomorrow . . . as for the CKP, I wasn't sure if it may have been caused by low voltage to it because of the alt., it only happened that once. When i do the alt., I'm gonna pop the negative cable off of the battery to reset the codes and see if it throws the CEL again. Is there another way to reset the codes without having to pull out my radio and get the ati-theft off of the bottom of it, then resetting all my presets?? LOL

 

The 2k idle on a cold start up is normal as long as it returns to like ~850-900 rpm when warm. The light could have come on because of a bad connection to the battery, usually if an alternator is dead it wont work right just because you bounce off the rev limiter. Take it to Advanced Auto or Autozone and they will test your battery and alternator for free. As for the CKP code, it threw that code when my ground for my starter was knocked off and I turned the key for too long for some reason so possibly from a bad ground or low voltage.

Pull the 7.5 amp back up fuse under the hood on the passenger side, it will reset the ECU