Car Alternator

Trust|Nobody said:
That's true, I totally forgot to mention something.
The discharge warning light was on since Monday.
Friday the car battery was completely dead.

On Thursday evening on my way home in the evening, the instrumentation and headlights began fading before my eyes. I knew the battery was getting closer to death. Suddenly out of know where the instrumentation and headlights shot up to full power. And the discharge warning light went off for the first time since it started on Monday. I thought yippee, the problem is gone.

I arrived home about 20 minutes later. I parked my car and switched it off. I wanted to see if the discharge warning light would come back on and it did! (After I switched the engine off and restarted it) Damn I thought, back to square one.

What I want to point out is that just suddenly while on the N1 the power shot up and the discharge warning light went out.
What could have caused that?
Click to expand...

A major component failure or a wiring issue! That car of yours needs someone to go through with a fine toothcomb to find out what has happened to it. And you need to STOP ignoring WARNINGS when they appear. Somehow somewhere, a cable has probably overheated because of a high drain which caused the insulation on a number of wires to overheat, which in turn has resulted in "shorts" between wires in that harness, leading to all sorts of faults.

The original battery, and maybe the alternator were affected in the process, and now because you clearly belong to the "replace components one by one till you strike it lucky" brigade, continuing with this process is going to cost you a mint. The ONLY lesson you are learning is "The dummies guide to losing money".

Tow your car to an auto electrician and let them find out what is wrong.
 
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Trust|Nobody said:
This is what my battery looks like:
http://www.batteriesdirect.co.za/products/1442400994_636.png

So I don't need to remove the caps?
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By your own admission this is a new battery! Take it to a Willard supplier and get them to bench test the battery! Surely you got a warranty on that battery? Tamper with the caps and you will void the warranty. Stop trying to play technical detective with this problem and get the battery and alternators (both) bench tested and IF okay or repaired DO NOT PUT THEM BACK INTO THE CAR UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT THE H IS WRONG.

Whether it is a bad earth cable or a cooked cable harness or whatever. It is more than possible for a "short" of some sorts to happen WITHOUT BLOWING ANY FUSES.
 
Trust|Nobody said:
The location of the white cable is circled in red (between the two pipes). And the location of the alternator is circled in green.
https://ibb.co/hoYAMc

The mechanic said it might be a cable to a temperature sensor.
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The mechanic said "it might be a cable to a temperature sensor"?? What sort of mechanic is this? That engine is simplicity itself!
 
What I am starting to wonder is exactly how he went about "charging his phone" on the car ----

OP has been very sparing in describing everything that went wrong , with a few posts that start with "I forgot to ....."

WHEN did the warning lights go on and off? Before the cell phone charging incident or after?

Bet you he decided to rev the engine while charging the phone ..... pushing the voltage to the top end of the range.

And I suppose further, he has one of those charging cords bought at a robot off a street vendor! how good do you think the voltage regulation in those el cheapo cell phone car chargers are?? Surprised the cell phone battery survived the episode!
 
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Just to state the obvious.

If OP took the alternator to an Auto electrician to have it reconditioned. Electrician would have picked up if the alternator was not the issue and probably diagnosed the harness to find the fault.

Lesson learned I hope OP. Don't fiddle with things that you have experts that do it for a living :p
 
Freshy-ZN said:
YAYYYYYAAYYYAAYYYY Finally. Look, 10 points for trying and even more points to the forum for getting so involved in trying to solve this mystery.
Click to expand...

What else can we do? it's either this or stick and paste, I will choose this over stick and paste any time.
 
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