Hi, I have 99 Honda Accord EX. I think My battery has problems. If the battery goes down, is there any indicator, which will go off? Any one knows about it in Accord, Please help me with this. Thanks.

 

If your battery has problems, you can't start your car and your headlights will be dim. There's the indicator.

Have you ever changed your battery yet?

 

You can do two things, if you have the right tools.

1 - Use a battery hydrometer to measure specific gravity in each cell. If they're much different from each other, that's not good. Sorta related to this, if you have to add distilled water because the levels keep dropping, that's not good.

2 - Do a load test. If you don't have a load tester, you can sorta check by measuring battery voltage with everything turned off. Then measure it again with headlights, blowers, window motors, stereos, etc... Basically turn on everything you can think of. A healthy battery won't drop much in voltage with all that stuff running.

 

Put it this way, if your car is a 99 and it still has the original battery your probably due for a replacement. I usually change my batteries every 3-4 years. If its no the original then ignore this.

 

If you have a voltage meter hook it up to the terminals. A fully charged battery will usually measure around 12.4-12.6. Anything under 12 will no longer hold a full charge. To test the alternator measure the voltage while the car is at idle with no accessories on. It should be around 13.5. Then turn some stuff on like lights, a/c, and rev it up and take a measurement. The reading should either go up to 14ish or drop slightly and return to 13.6. If either of those happen that means the alternator is properly adjusting the load. If it drops to like 12.8 and never goes back up you might have a bad alternator.

 

A good battery should be able to push 10.5 volts at 1/2 cold cranking amps for about 15 seconds. A good alternator should be able to provide it's amp rating ( usually around 60 for a honda ) at battery voltage, around 12 volts.

If you don't have proper testing equipment and your battery is a few years old, replace it anyway.

BTW, why do you think your battery has problems?

 

i tested my battery the other day and it was jumping between 9.6-18 volts....alternator?

 

Sounds like a voltage regulator problem. I think it's internal on these.