Ok so all winter I have had the battery of my car hooked up to a maintainer at 1amp. Car has been just fine the past couple times I drove it. Come out today and crank her and the voltage gauge is way low. Maybe 1/4 from bottom. I checked the voltage at battery and at the alternator connection (nut on top) and got 11.35 at both places. I don't have a battery light on however. And if I turn any accessories on it starts dropping the gauge. I did not plug the maintainer back in two days ago when I drove the car. It's looking like my alternator isn't doing anything at all. Is there something else to check? I have the battery on the maintainer now and the alternator only has 54k on it as does the car. The battery was replaced by previous owner and looks good.

 

check your battery cable at the post,make sure it has good connection & clean, if so, then might be the alt.,,,,, never run a car on a low battery an expect the alt. to charge it up, it will over work the regulater in the alt. and possibly burn it out. take the but end of a large screwdriver and TAP on the alt. while running and volt meter hooked up, ya never know if the reg. isn't working it could jar it enough to spike and let you know it's not. or just take it somewhere and have both the batt. and alt. checked for free, most auto parts stores will do it right on the car!

 

said screw it and dropped 213 bucks on a new alternator. Fixed it right up. Just another one of those Ford parts that's notorious for being junk lol