I have a 2004 Chevy Malibu Maxx that randomly dings and shows me the battery light.
It usually happens when going uphill or during really hard accelerations.
It is also showing OBDII code P0621.
The car has no other issues. Always starts, always runs well.
What causes this problem? Where should I start looking? I'm thinking it's probably a bad connection somewhere.
2007 Malibu, heat only blows warm during acceleration, when you come to stop/idle heat blows cool. Temp gauge remains constant in normal operating range while driving.
View 2 RepliesI started to notice my battery light comes on during a hard acceleration. So I have been keeping track of it. When the rpm's hit 3200 and above the light comes on bright but never at any other time. I put a volt meter on it and I have 13.4 volts at an idle, as the engine revs up the voltage climes to 13.9 then when it hits the 3200 mark voltage drops right off to 12.4. It seems like a regulator issue to me. The parts store says my 5.4 has an external regulator is that so or is it built right into the alternator?
View 7 RepliesMy 2001 Town and Country runs great but randomly dings most commonly on longer trips. For example this morning I drove 130 miles it did not ding until I had driven 40 miles and then it dinged again at 50, 55 and it gets increasingly closer together until by the time I got home it was dinging 15 or 20 times a minute. It is at random intervals. It has dinged non-stop. It does not seem to matter how fast I am going. There are no lights on, on the dash. It does not appear to be over heating. It doesn't seem to matter if I am going up hill or down hill or driving level. It doesn't matter how much fuel I have. As it increases in frequency sometimes it will ding once while other times it will ding 2 or 3 times quickly. I am trying monitor different variables but it feels random except it typically starts around 40 to 50 miles into a trip but it has started dinging immediately when I first started it for the day. Sometimes it doesn't happen at all on long trip or it only happens once or twice but never progresses in frequency. I recently drove 250 miles and it only dinged once at about 230 miles and not again.
View 8 RepliesI have a 2008 Malibu LS and the service traction light comes on randomly, I suspect a sensor. The car operates fine and this light has been coming on for several months. My question is can I just ignore? Another question is that I had new tires put on and they said I needed new control arms and bushings. I'm always suspicious when I go in for one thing and told I need something else. What would be the symptoms that I need to replace these parts?
View 5 RepliesI'm having an issue with my brakes. It was very intermittent, but seems to be happening a little more often lately. 99% of the time they work fine.
I'll try to describe. (vaguely) It will sometimes feel like the ABS is engaging, get a very hard pedal and some pulsing feeling. Sometimes just the pulsing without the hard pedal. It will happen at random times. Today it did it in the driveway going 5 MPH. No reason the ABS should think of kicking in.
I feel confident to rule out anything downstream at the wheels. I am leaning towards the master cylinder, but maybe that's wishful thinking. Afraid it also could be something sticking in the ABS which I assume is $$$.
Brake fluid is 18 months old with maybe 20k on it.
I recently had my alternator and battery replaced due to my truck dying out randomly on me, tested the alternator and failed, replaced battery, and still got the same results, battery gauge seems to drop quickly, what could be going on, I have been told to replace the fusible link that goes from the battery to the alternator....
View 1 RepliesDuring a hard acceleration to get on the freeway, the car "missed" and the check engine light came on. The shop said it was the fuel pump and replaced it. When I picked it up, they told me that I may need a new battery soon because the last start they did was hard. It worked well for me, but that day it was hard to start, but it did not seem like the battery. The shop checked the electrical system and all was good. They said the new fuel pump was faulty and replaced it. Since then, when it is over 70 degrees out (South Texas), and it is a hot start (I just drove it a while, turned it off, and try to restart within 30 minutes), it is hard to start. Could this be another faulty fuel pump? Is this some other problem? Could the shop have damaged something during the fuel pump replacement?
View 5 RepliesI have a 2001 malibu , my cars engine light has been for about a week. This is the second time it has happened. lately I have been having trouble starting my car. Does this have anything to do with my car , or because of the cold weather? How important is it for me to get my car checked out?
View 2 RepliesI have a 2004 Saab 9-3. Currently the Battery Warning Light has come on. It came on while the car was being driven. The car's performance seemed to suffer and it was hard to turn the steering wheel. We were about two miles away from home and we somehow managed to get home but we simply couldn't get the car to turn on to our driveway because of loss of power for steering.
We checked the Saab manual and it reads : Warning Charging - This light comes on together with 'triangle/exclamation' light if the battery is not charging. If it comes on while you are driving, stop the car as soon as possible and switch off the engine.Check the alternator drive belt. If the belt has broken, the engine may overheat (cooling system will not function properly), the battery will not be charged, the A/C compressor will not run and power assistance for steering will be lost.
Our observation:- We experienced the a/c not working too well- We had problem with steering - It was almost as if the steering wheel was locked. It was extremely hard to turn. Is this an alternator belt or a battery issue? If so, how do we figure out?
When I tried to turn left yesterday, my car suddenly stopped with both the "check engine" light and "battery" light on, but the heat, headlights and radio were working just fine. I turned off the engine, and waiting a few minutes, ad then restarted the car, and everything is fine. I do not drive the car today. My question: is this a problem with the battery or the electric line? When the "battery" light is on, can i conclude it's a problem limited to the electric line only rather than a fuel line. My car is Chevy Malibu, 1999, with 90,000 mileages on it.
View 12 RepliesRecently the car was stuttering under hard acceleration and battery voltage dropped, I have a batt gauge. Got harness replaced and symptoms are gone but this must be happening to others with or without symptoms.
Check your fuse box on top of the battery. The alternator harness wire turns silver after many years of use. Your battery volts will drop also and you can see it with a gauge. I changed this harness and symptoms went away. It's the thick gauge wire all the way to the left. This needs to be changed with a new alternator. Many people prob don't know their harness is causing high resistance affecting the quality of smoothness.
The hotter the car gets the worse it gets if you have this issue. More RPMS, is more electricity and more resistance. There is no CEL for this. The harness should be copper colored, if it turns silver it's old and needs to be swapped. If you drive low Rpms all the time you won't notice. But it's an R, who does this?
The harness is around $90 and car has to be in service mode to get to the alternator. This is my 2nd alternator and kept my original harness when replaced, bad idea.
It takes under 20 seconds to pop the hood and open the fuse box to see what color your harness cable is. I expect most to be silver not copper, but whether you have symptoms or not depends on severity.
2004 Malibu 3.5 v6. 101,000 miles. In order to get engine running gas pedal has to be pushed all the way down to get it started. Engine will not start by turning key. Car initially starts sputters and then dies. Pedal to the floor while cranking engine fires and runs. Which direction do I go first at. Ignition or Fuel. What should the fuel pressure be with key on engine not running ?
What should pressure be at while running ?
What is the time frame pressure should hold at and for how long ?
Ignition, Coil,Wires,Plugs. Are these the only ignition parts to look at?
Check engine light is on but has leak in exhaust. Exhaust needs to be welded. All parts above are original. Neither Fuel Pump nor Ignition Component have not been changed. Which do I do first ?
so it started like a month ago my door light would occasionally come on for no reason now it's to the point where my door light is always on and it constantly dings, i know its the door lock module but is there any way to tell which door? it might be the trunk and also is there a way to temporarily fix it soi don't drive my car into a tree from being so annoyed.
View 4 RepliesI have a 2004 Chev Avalanche. Several times recently my check engine light comes on, the truck dings 3 times at me and a dash script tells me to tighten my fuel cap. I do and the light goes out within a few hours or the next day. I have changed fuel caps twice. This week the light came on, has not gone off and at least 3 time it has told me to tighten the fuel cap which I have done.
View 7 RepliesI have a a 2005 Focus, 199,000 miles. The battery light has been come on randomly. It doesn't seen to be related to any other event in the car. Things I've done to diagnose it...
I cleaned the battery cable connections before I started any diagnostics.
I have two code reader and no codes are being thrown.
I connected a multimeter to the battery while the car was idling in the driveway.
I got 13.8-14.1 volts as the car sat and ran. When the light came on no change on the meter.
I have a Scan Gauge that allows me to watch the voltage in real time. Four days and no change when the light came on. ~13.8-14.1 at idle and ~14.1-14.4 underway.
I have the Car Chip. I plugged it in drove for about 10 runs and the voltage trace was pretty flat on all runs, battery light on or off.
The only thing that is consistent is if the light is on and I rev the engine it goes out BUT they rpm when the light goes is inconsistent.
So my dummy light came on the other day, I went ahead and pulled the alternator and had it tested at advanced. It tested bad so I replaced it not my battery light comes on and off randomly. I have a edge tuner on my truck and my voltage reading on there is different after each start up. Sometimes it runs 12.1-12.2 other times it reads in the 14's I have checked with a multimeter also and got the same readings +-.1 or 2.
My dummy light keeps coming back on randomly, I had to replace the alternator connector because I broke it by accident. I also traced the wires as far as I could to check for brakes in the wire and found none with out proper time to pull all the wire loom off. What is the cause I know I could probably use cables soon as my terminals look a bit rough but are clean. Seems to be some really weak flimsy metal. Which fuse to check as my 2002 ex 7.3 only has the inside fuse block and I can't find much online about it.
Over the past few months I've noticed that my truck has a very intermittent shudder under mild acceleration. If I accelerated more during the shudder it seemed to disappear until I let off the peddle a little. When it happens the truck doesn't seem to be lacking power and the engine throws no codes. It happened again today right as I had stopped at a red light. I noticed that it was shuddering at idle too. I shut the truck off at the intersection and the shudder was gone once restarted. What it may be?
View 5 RepliesI have a 2002 Escape XLT V6 4X4. I searched the issue, but others' symptoms don't seem to be quite the same as what I'm seeing. Over the last few weeks, the battery light has randomly come on and off 3 separate times:
- 1st time, light came on at highway speed for about 30 sec and went out. Didn't come back on. Was during daytime, running DRL's, radio (no amp or subs or anything like that, and heater blower on low speed.
- 2nd time was two weeks later or so. Happened at night with just headlights on at around 55mph (RPMs about 2K or so). Again, stayed on for about 30 sec and went out.
- 3rd time was about a week/week and a half later, yesterday morning. Just running DRL's and radio. Light came on, flickered, came on, and then stayed on for a couple of minutes (all at highway speed). I noticed that if I disengaged the overdrive and got the RPMs up, the light would go out. I ran it out of overdrive for about 2 minutes like that, and the light stayed out. Speed limit dropped to 40mph, and the light came back on (lower RPMs at that speed, didn't run it in low gears). Light stayed on for 30 sec - 1 minute, and then went out on its own and has since stayed off.
I took it to Advance yesterday to have it tested, and the results were that it is charging at 13.9V under no load, and 13.87V under a load. The battery tested good, but the machine said it needed to be charged (it hasn't been acting low...car starts just fine).
I'm driving it to work today to see what it does next, and then getting it tested again on my way home. Has anyone here ever had similar symptoms as above? Does this sound like bad diodes in the alternator?
So, I have have an intermittent flickering of the battery light. The weird part is that it ONLY happens between 80 and 85 mph. Any faster or slower and it doesn't happen. It's not a steady flickering, but a random intermittent flicker. What the issue may be? The car has a new (within 2000 miles) battery and alternator. 1.8t with manual transmission.
View 3 Replies2003 Pontiac Montana
So I got a phone call from the wife and she tells me when she is driving, the Battery Symbol Light in the dash is lit up only when the Blower is on, but goes out when the Blower is off.
Also, when the vehicle is in Park and idling, the Battery Symbol Light is on but if the engine is revved up, the Battery Symbol light is not lit.
This would lead me to believe it may be a weak tension on the serpentine belt.
I will check both the tension on the belt and the voltage level tonight when she gets home from work, but I am puzzled, because my experience with alternator is either dead or alive. Not just a little dead.