My daily driver is having some charging problems. I replaced the altenator earlier this year. Everything was fine until a few weeks ago. It has started lighting up dash warning lights at start up indicating a weak altenator output. If I rev the motor some, they will go out. Occasinally when the revs come back down, the lights come back on, but not always.
While driving the lights (warning lights) will flicker sometimes. This is accompanied by a slight flashing of the headlights, interior lights, etc. There seems to be no common time/condition that causes this while driivng. it happens at different revs/speeds, it doesn't happen at all most of the time but will occassionally start for no reason, do it for about 10 min, then stop just as mysteriously. It's not a battery problem, start up is fine. I'm hesitant to have the altenator tested because it doesn't do it all the time and I'm not sure they could replicate the problem.
My question is: is it more likely that the new altenator is bad or that I have some type of short in the system some where that's casuing problems? Any tips where to start looking?
The car is a 1991 Toyota Camry with a 2.0L 4cyl and 225,000 miles. It runs great except for this problem, although it could likely use new cap, rotor, coil, etc.... doubt that has any effect on alt output?
While driving the lights (warning lights) will flicker sometimes. This is accompanied by a slight flashing of the headlights, interior lights, etc. There seems to be no common time/condition that causes this while driivng. it happens at different revs/speeds, it doesn't happen at all most of the time but will occassionally start for no reason, do it for about 10 min, then stop just as mysteriously. It's not a battery problem, start up is fine. I'm hesitant to have the altenator tested because it doesn't do it all the time and I'm not sure they could replicate the problem.
My question is: is it more likely that the new altenator is bad or that I have some type of short in the system some where that's casuing problems? Any tips where to start looking?
The car is a 1991 Toyota Camry with a 2.0L 4cyl and 225,000 miles. It runs great except for this problem, although it could likely use new cap, rotor, coil, etc.... doubt that has any effect on alt output?
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