For wayne, I ended up driving home from AutoZone and noticed my battery charge guage was at L. When my radio turned off (Shaker 1000, can't imagine how much it drains battery!), then my traction control turned off, ABS, airbags, and all guages went blank. I timed it perfectly, coasted into my mechanics garage and the car just died. $400 for a new alternator with a lifetime warranty and installation. Had it fixed in less than 24 hours. Sad day, but hey, don't gotta worry about buying it again.

 

Not soley for my ego, although I'll admit that might be a bonus. Can I stand on the soapbox now and shout "told ya so!" in this thread now?

You'd be surprised how many will find these threads from google searches, or internal ones looking for similar symptoms, this provides them with your particular resolution with your own circumstances defined for them.

This was actually how I joined/found the site.

90% of the audio/video section I've given advise in seem to do this, drives me nuts. They ask, get an answer(s), obviously do something, but never come back to share with the rest of the class.

 

Heat can be hell on the battery/charging system. I live down in austin so I deal with 3 months of 100+ temps every year. 4 years and 80k miles on the stock charging system and optima yellow top with zero issues. i've heard horror stories regarding the shaker audio setups. I have a Rockford Power 1000 5 channel running 2 ohm stable driving a 9 speaker setup and the stock charging system is keeping up with it....four years later. Amazing.

Those shaker systems must be the issue.

 

I don't think its the shaker. I pulled mine out 6 months after having the car in favor of a Kenwood HU and some amps. I had two alternators replaced under warranty and replaced the stock battery with a Red Top optima after the first alt died. Both times I started getting an engine light with the cam shaft position sensor code, never had the alt completely die on me so I got lucky.