cut and paste from Maxima.org. Anyone have any clue what the fuck is going on? IM seriously pissed. I just paid $350 for a fucking alternator, and that doesnt seem to be what the problem was. I think Shaggy came over when I was sleeping. My asshole is bleeding and my car wont start. :crying:
Ok. Yesterday the girlfriend is driving home from work. She calls me from the side of the road saying the car broke down. I come out, she says the lights started to go dim, the car started sputtering, and then it just died. DING! Alternator is dead. Right? Wrong, apparantly. I replaced it today with a new unit, car ran fine on the drive to work (about 3 miles) and fine on the way home, until im almost at my house. I get on it a little bit, car doesnt shift when its supposed to. Stayed in 2nd gear even after I let off, then it finally shifted, i think I heard a miniscule little squeal from a belt, then BOOM, lights go super dim. Pull into the driveway, and theres a weird *** clicking noise coming from under the glovebox/passenger side kickpanel area. Car starts to sputter, and then finally dies. Try to turn it over, and nothing. Doesnt even try. Lights are super dim, radio wont turn on, and the buzzing noise is gone. What the hell is going on with my car? I dont get it. Bad battery? IS there a relay or something over in there that i heard buzzing? On a side note, when this happened yesterday, I jumped it, let it charge the battery for about 6-7 minutes, then drove it the rest of the way home and it worked fine. And I had the Bose system turned up the whole way to and from work just to make sure that it wasnt something else. Any insight into how I can go about fixing this would be greatly appreciated.
Oh, and I almost forgot, Im in the process of putting in indiglo gauges. The gauge cluster is removed from the car. I dont see how this could possibly have anything to do with anything. I had the gauges wired up, two of them werent working, so I pulled it out again to mess with it and one of the wires that links to the gauge itself pulled out. I think I heard a fuse pop, and when i touched the wires back together the two that were working did not light back up again. Ive been working 7 days a week, so I havent exacltly had a lot of time to **** with it. Ive only had the damn car for like 2 weeks, so I havent quite acclimated myself with these cars yet. I have to get all the DSM knowledge out of my head so i can fill it with Maxima facts. Thanks guys!
I swapped out my alternator with no problem with instructions i found on the .org
Pull fans, pull ac compressor and move aside, drop down alternator. Repeat process in reverse. Although on the cavvy, I had the alternator off in less than 5 min, but where it sits makes it about the easiest thing to replace, ever.
i had a similar problem in my CRX after i first bought it. The lights would go out and then the car would die. This happened on 3 ocassions. This sounds similar to the problems that i had so here is what i did…ended up that my battery terminals were fucking shot, there was basically no signal coming through and after acceleration or hitting a bump the terminals would move and there would be loss of power. I just replaced the terminals and cleaned the wires and no problems since. The positive terminal actually dissolved as i was taking it off for the final time.
Im not sure if this is the problem but i am just trying to offer some advice. Even if it turns out that this isn’t the problem you will have a great connection and new terminals for like $5 and 15 min of your time. Im just not sure about the noise coming from the passenger side. Thats whats throwing me off here but anyways, good luck!
I suppose its a possibility. Its a 97 though, so its not really that old. Maybe the battery is just shot. And to top it off, the alternator I took off was only 4 years old. Installation date was written on it with a marker. I’ll take a look at the terminals though. ITs weird, but over a span of about 2 minutes the car went from perfectly fine, to and extremely drained battery, then slowly trickling off to a completly dead battery. Like something discharged almost all the power out of it. Maybe it is the battery, its a big ugly looking green and white Interstate. HOw much are car batteries? Ive never had to buy one before… :dunno:
No offense… but I’ve never understood why people start throwing new, expensie, parts at problems w/o even knowing if they’re the cause. My buddy runs and Automotive Electrical shop and you have no idea how many cars come in with brand new alternators and batteries from the local parts store and still experience all sorts of electrical problems. 9 times out of 10 it’s either a bad ground or a worn wire that’s shorting out. Sometimes it’s worth the $80-100 for an hour of a good automotive electrician’s time to find out exactly what the problem is b4 you buy a $350 alternator.
Meh, normally I would have researched it more, but ive been in a few cars that have had the alternaor crap out (the Bronco, the Prelude, the Cavalier) and the symptoms matched pretty much exactly. But tonight it happened way too sudden. That, and it has a brand new alternator. So im retty sure its not the alternator. Im gonna take the alternator and old battery to get tested out. See where that leads. Any idea where I should start looking for a wire thats shorting out? lol… :hs:
my old 5.0 would do the same thing. i had a loose wire down by the drivers side floor board and the battery cables were shot. no idea why you ogt a boom though.
im with chad on this one. its been 2 weeks that you had this car and had these problems. the reason it was at the dealership is cause it probably had these same issues
just start checking all the connections between the battery, alternator, fuse boxes. the lights dimming sounds like your battery is getting drained, so it sounds like the car isn’t charging your battery. check your alternator cables and connections.
