Ok so this time its not my car blowing up.

Abbys car has had this problem for the past year.

At first the car wouldnt start intermittently. What would happen is the starter wouldnt crank at all. It would click like the battery were dead.

At first we could jiggle the battery cables and this would make it start 8/10 times. Other times would require a jump.

Since then, I have replaced the negative battery cables, and cleaned the grounds on the back of the bellhousing. This seemed to get rid of the no start problem.

But now we have a second problem. The cars voltage will randomly drop to ~10 on the voltmeter and STAY there. It happens on random drives... it will just drop to 10 and hang there. She said it was going up and down on part of the drive.

Her dad replaced the alternator, and still no go.

... Im starting to think its the alternator belt... I had something like this happen on my car, and the belt ended up having a tear in it that was barely noticeable but caused this. ( I dont know if her dad replaced it?)

Another thing is, the grounds on the back of the engine are usually attatched by a bolt. Her car has a stud there... I dont think this would have much to do with it but I dont know anymore.

And third, WHERE exactly are all of the ground points. I know theres one under the drivers side dash, under the rear hatch carpet drivers side, by the headlights, and on the back of the engine by the sensors. Am I missing one?

Could it be the voltage regulator?

Any ideas would be helpful!

But im wondering what else could cause this?

 

Needs more JiggaWatts

 

There's another ground on the bottom of the crossmember.

 

Thats a small ground. I dont think thats the culprit.

 

Where are you measuring voltage? Look for bad wiring around there.

 

The later cars have a gauge in the gauge cluster that has the voltage on it.

Yer car doesnt

 

Check for voltage drops in the positive battery cable that goes from the alt to the starter, then the battery. You may have a bad connection at the starter.

Ian

 

Have you measured at the battery terminals with a multimeter? Does it agree with the voltmeter in the dash?

 

bad gauge? haha :P

 

battery

 

If the voltage is dropping that low, I think you should also notice the car's systems get affected, like headlights and cluster lights. Have you ever experienced this voltage problem at night? If the headlights don't dim at all it could be a bad connection to the cluster.

But clean and coat the starter connections with contact grease.

So is this voltage problem related to the starter problem?

 

Replaced the battery, redid the connections at the starter already.

Actually the battery has been replaced several times. It was replaced with a Duralite battery from autozone, then her dad took it to autozone and had it tested. The battery came back bad. I think that the car had something to do with it being bad. So now it has this Bosch tank battery like I have.

When this happens, the car is affected. The lights dim, the heat blows slow.

She said she had her turn signal on and the volttage on the gauge was rising and dropping at the tone of the turn signal.

 

Does nobody know ?

 

you said you cleaned the connections on the starter? I would start there. Also check there are two grounds on the back of the bellhousing- one is a small stud for the harness to ground to and the other is a bolt that holds the negative battery cable.

 

My friends fiero did that when the starter froze up (not cold frozen).