ok, its too late to do anything right now, but let me know if i am going down the right path. ive thumbed the search and found a couple of things.. hopefully ive got a good plan of attack for thw morning.

recently, the battery light started blinking. yesterday and today, when i started the car and drove for the first couple of miles, no light, then when i got on the freeway the light came on.

today, the light came on after i got on the freeway and stayed on.

when i got home, the battery was nearly dead.

so..... this is what im going to do tommorow, to see what the problem is.

pre-step, clean all the connections to the battery, check the ground, jump the car and drive it a bit.

1. definately replace the battery as it is old, came with the car and has died at least twice in the last year. charged it and it has held up, but im sure its old.. ive owned the car for 2 years now.. who knows how old the battery is.

2. check the voltage with the battery in off mode, and with car on mode to determine if the alternator is gone or going south. 12ish on the multimeter in off mode, and 14ish with car on right?

-turn on car, and remove the ground cable. with good alternator the car should still run right? (or is this bad, some forums said it might cause a spike??)

3. check to see if no power leak anywhere. recently, someone tried to "steal" my radio and horribly ruined the faceplate. maybe something is draining the battery?

4. cringe and figure out how to replace alternator. i tried to d/l the helm manual but the link doesnt work.

sound about right??

rcmits

 

You can do all the checking you want to the battery, but if the light is coming on, it has nothing to do with the actual battery. It's all alternator man. The battery light in the car gets triggered when you approach 12 volts. The alternator should produce 14 volts (or a tad less depending on if you're running head lights when you check it, or where you check it at). Odds are, your battery is still fine. The only reason it dies is because your car runs off of it alone while you're driving (instead of running off the alternator and getting charged, hence the battery light in your dash)

before you replace the alternator though, try a few things. First check all the connections coming out of the alternator. Next, when the battery light comes on, try pulling over and "tapping" the alternator with the handle of a hammer, or long screwdriver (with car still running) Sometimes, the brushes lose contact with the rotor in there, and will stop producing a charge. You can get it to start working again sometimes. Good luck.

 

they say i can replace just the brushes on the alternator.. what do you think?

 

Once you've taken a civic alternator out - you might as well replace it with another one and get another 150K miles out of it.

 

got it replaced. noticed that the front engine mount was horribly destroyed too.. guess thats what happens to a 13 year old car. also replaced the 3 sepentine belts.. wow.

what a difference. the car starts up really quietly now, and feels like there is a bit more power... maybe its mental... but that front engine mount did the trick.

again, maybe its mental, but my headlights seem a bit brighter too!!

thanks to all that helped.

 

it's probably not mental. Your headlights "should" be brighter, and your stereo should even be louder and clearer.

 

would be nice if i had a radio.. some schmuck tried to (and i quote try..) to steal my radio.. LOL.