levi7

I can't find a thread with my problem so here's a new one.

Story starts out pretty typical - battery dies twice in a week, so I go get my alternator tested and I'm told it's not producing any charge. So I replace it with a refurbished alternator (unfortunately, currently regretting not going new with warranty).

All seems well since I don't drive much until yesterday my battery light turned on (solid, no blinking). Today I start her up and try to make the drive to my grandfather's shop but I don't make it. I noticed my battery gauge is all the way down in the red, minutes later the engine gets shaky like all cylinders weren't firing until my RPMs hit zero and I coast to the side of the road and call AAA.

Any clues what my problem could be besides alternator? My battery is also less than a year old but since my car died while running I figure it's irrelevant.

Oh, yeah. She's a 2004 v6 3.9L with 102k miles.

dawson1112

Have your battery tested. A bad battery will burn an alternator up , which I suspect is what happened to your old alternator. Check all grounds , cables etc.

Internal shorts in a battery , or diminished capacity of the battery. It could aslo be that the old alternator had a bad voltage regulator and it continuously over charged the battery causing a bad battery. Alternatively a bad battery can cause the alternator to over work and burn up.

Daehawk

Im not exactly sure of the order now but as I recall with mine.....battery had a slow drain on it. 1 or 2 days sitting was fine..3rd day i had to boost it. Alt checked fine so got a new battery. Was good a few months then slow drain showed up again. Had a true expert in alts check and the alt had a bad diode or two so had him rebuild it (60 years doing it) and new brushes while at it. Still had a slow drain. Took it back to the first guy and he found a bad cell in the battery and gave me a new one on the spot. Now it's been 3 years and no drain. So my thing was having both new and then taking it to a different guy if it did it again. Lucky both guys I use are honest even if the first one missed the alt problem. Cheap too and the alt guy is like a miracle worker hehe.