New Alternator and Battery and still loses power.

My wifes car which is a 2000 mitsubuishi mirage loses power and dies. I went and had the alternator tested and it was bad.

I have since replaced it and put in a new battery at the same time. We drove the car yesterday and today and now it has no power.

What would cause this. I checked the connections and they all seemed fine.

So the battery died while the car was sitting? If you jump it I assume it’s charging?

If so, I’d say you have an open circuit somewhere that’s drawing power all the time. And it will suck to find it. You can start with a good volt meter, hook it up to the battery, and have someone watch it while you pull one fuse at a time. If you see it change, and the fuse you pulled isn’t something that should be on all the time, you just found the circuit where your voltage leak is.

What do I do to fix it then.

The car does have a remote starter in it.

Moved to the Help Forum.

Who installed the remote starter?

Fixing voltage leaks is a royal PITA. First you have to find the circuit that is causing the problem, and assuming it isn’t a faulty device on that circuit (like a bad radio, trunk light staying on etc), you have to start tracing wire by wire until you find the problem.

Before you go through all that, make sure that’s really the problem. Charge the battery up, hook it up to the car, and take a voltage reading. It should be 12 or very close to it. Then start the car and take another reading. The reading with the car running should be higher, something near 13 volts to indicate the system is charging.

Assuming that all checks out, check the battery voltage with the car off, remove the battery cable, and see if you get a big change. If you do something is drawing current while the car is sitting, and you’ve got a lot of fun trying to track down what.

The remote starter was installed by Best Buy.

Ok I have a voltmeter, but I’m not exactly sure how to use it.

There are 7 settings this thing can be set to, to test the battery which one should I use and what symbol is it?
There is:

  1. V with a ~ on top of it
  2. V with a ___ and — on top of it
  3. 300 mV with ____ and ---- on top of it
  4. an omega sign
  5. an ->+ )))) symbol
  6. an A with a ~ on top
  7. an A with an ____ and — on top of it

Which one?

the alternator hae a fudeable link. maybe the alt fuse isblown and not charging the battery

Where would the alternators fuesable link be located?

What should the voltage be for the battery when the car is running?

battery has dead cell…

I just replaced it friday, when it died I had it replaced again with a new one.

The alternator I had tested and it runs fine.

What would keep the alternator from charging the battery if the battery is new and the alternator is new.

like 14.1 or somthing like that generally

Well I hope i fixed the problem. A tiny blue wire behind the battery was snapped. I traced the wire in both directions, one side led to the fuse box above the battery the other side led to the alternator clip.

Right next to it was a thicker red wire which I’m guessing was a hot wire. So the blue i assumed was a ground.

When it was connected again the voltage at the battery went from a little over 12v with the car off to a litte under 14v with the car on. That did not happen befor so I’m guessing it worked.

I want to thank everyone who helpped me out…except for Jay, you suck Jay :stuck_out_tongue:

Hey, all along I said “assuming the alternator is working” :wink:

I even explained how to check. lol

But I wasn’t sure what setting to put your voltmeter on, and if I guessed wrong your voltmeter goes “pop” and it’s done.

My guess is that will take care of it. That blue wire probably was the fusable link. When the last battery went it started working the alternator real hard, and could have blown that fusible link. All speculation, but it sounds good.

Hahaha…I didn’t mean you suck. :lol:

I was talking about addicted, his name is Jay.

:lol: glad u figured it out tom