Author Topic: question about a car (Read 166 times)

Fabulous_Verstyle · « **on:** July 18, 2004, 01:12:56 PM »

i have an 89 Jetta.....it runs good......no problem no nothing.......but its givin me problems these days........see i got 5 batters, even tho all 5 battereis were from some cars tht were sittin for 2 yrs......after like 2 days........the battery dies......im not sure if its the Battery or the Alternator......so if ne of u kno how to chek wht the problem is plzz holla....and i i heard gettin a new alternator is a whole fortune.........so if its the alternator thn i guess ill jus throw away the car as it only costed me 4 bills.....arite.......eZ

white Boy · « **Reply #1 on:** July 18, 2004, 01:14:40 PM »

alternator should be under 100$, i may be wrong.

Sikotic™ · « **Reply #2 on:** July 18, 2004, 01:17:42 PM »

Its most likely the alternator. I had the same exact problem with an 88 Audi I used to have, and after replacing the alternator I never had that problem again.

Since Audi and VW are similar and both cars are almost the same year, I'm sure you're just having the same problem.

Fabulous_Verstyle · « **Reply #3 on:** July 19, 2004, 02:51:04 PM »

how much did it cost u to replace the alternator ?

goldn · « **Reply #4 on:** July 19, 2004, 07:14:03 PM »

Could be 2 x Things:

1. Alternator is stuffed, to check this get your hands on to a multimeter (lend or buy what ever they are pretty cheap like $10). Now start the car and measure the voltage between the positive and negitive on the battery, it should be somewhere around 14v. This is the charging voltage of a healthy alternator, if its like 12.0 or around there your alternator is stuffed.

2. Something is drawing a few amps constantly. I have come across this a few times lately on mates cars. The easist way to check this is to unplug your battery when ever your not sriving the car.... if the battery dosent go flat then yes something is drawing a few amps constantley and you will prob need to see an autoelcetrician. The proper way to check to see if something is drawing amps is to get a multimeter and hook it up in line ( change the positive lead on the multimeter over to the spare connection on the multimeter.) now remove the terminal from the positive side of your battery, hook this to one side of the multimeter and the other lead of the multimeter should be on the battery. with the car off there should be close to no amps birng drawn ( take into account there may be some if you have an alarm etc....) if you are getting a reading such a 1 or .15 or 2 etccc then something is drawing amps and you need to start isolating electrical circuts ( you can do this by removing fuses one at a time ) and watch for when the reading drops, this will determine what circuts is responsible for drawing the amps, your next task will be to figure out what is faulty / broken on that circut drawing amps.