Ahhh... I enjoyed about 2 months of my car being trouble-free. It was nice while it lasted. But here we go again; this time it's just an annoyance, although it could leave me stranded somewhere so I'll ask. I found nothing like this doing a "alternator" search in the forum search, or a "intermittent alternator", "intermittent charge" or a "How fast can Tinkerbell fly". The latter one proved to be the one with the least results. Anyway, What's happening is that my alternator sometimes decided to charge normally as expected and sometimes it just won't charge at all. My lights will go really dim, my wipers really slow and when I turn off the car the alt light won't come on like it usually does for like half a second or so. Sometimes it will charge just fine, lights normal, wiper normal, alt light comes on when I shut off the engine. Sometimes, the alt will not charge and all of a sudden my lights come on bright, and everything seems okay until I shut the car off. Once I start it it goes dim again for like 2 minutes and then it will charge again. Why would it work intermittently? Is it the regulator (which I replaced about 6 months ago) or the alternator (replaced 2 months ago), or is there something else that I'm overlooking?

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[/SIGPIC]~cirrusman

1983 Mercedes Benz 300SD - Wife calls him "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"
[SIGPIC]




1983 Toyota Tercel (Tommy, The little Toyota that could)
1965 Ford F100 (Grandma Ford)
2005 Toyota Sienna (Elsa, Wife's ride)


Gone:
1988 Toyota Pickup
2004 Subaru Outback

1987 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham
1986 Volvo 740 GL Station Wagon - Piece of junk.
1981 Volvo 242 DL 2 Door - Hated to see it go. R.I.P.
1987 Pontiac Fiero GT