So my Civic is about to reach 200,000 and it started throwing some issues at me this past week. It started with some slower than usual cranks, I had replaced the alternator and the little regulator in the fuse box a while ago so was thinking maybe the battery. It went away and all was well. One day I go to start and bam nothing at all. Some power but as soon as you turn the ignition just click and dead. I used a jumper box and it started right up.

Driving it home though I noticed it wanted to stall on occasion enough to turn the radio off and back on. Only at idle. Then I noticed the lights would dim/get brighter with revs and sometimes super bright. So it seems like there’s a fluctuation in voltage either from the battery being shot or the alternator gone bad. I had AutoZone put a tester on the battery just to see the numbers and when I got there and turned it off it was totally dead. When I started it it read 12+ and would jump to 14.3 or so sometimes. He says that’s a sign the alternator is bad since it should never fluctuate but I’ve had numerous cars where it would fluctuate some depending on if the A/C was on, radio, etc.

Any ideas where to begin? I may just go buy a battery since it’s probably shot anyway at this point but there’s no point in just putting it in and then letting it die too if something else is wrong. I’m just not sure the right starting point.

 

have you figured it out yet

 

I replaced the battery and haven’t had any starting issues since but am still having the lights dim depending on revs.