hey there, I think I drive my car less than most people on this forum, now that the weather is nicer I'm on two wheels. But when I do want to drive the cah, the battery is always dead. So I've been tinkering to see if I can't narrow in on the problem (the car will not start after say being left for four days). I started by fully charging the battery with a trickle charger. Then disconnected neg term and completed circuit with multimeter measuring current draw, basically none. I had done work before to find that central locking system was not working properly but that is long gone at this point. So no huge current draw with car off. Hook back neg term check voltage of battery 11.2. start car, engine running at idle for no more than one minute check voltage 11.2. have better half step on gas up to ~2k car's only been on for one minute check voltage: 11.2. So here are the questions. It seems like my alternator's not supplying enough juice. My car did stall on me one time when I sat in bad traffic and didn't move an inch for about forty minutes, which would suggest to me that unless this car is run at high rpm the alt can't keep up and the car is really only making it day by day because of the trickle charge. But this only happened once otherwise once the car starts, it always gets me where I want to go, I was under the impression that if your alt was bad you couldn't drive the car more than a mile or so before the battery would be completely spent. I have searched on this and see volt reg as something people replace when the alt is questioned but don't really know what it does, I know where it is and how to get it out, but not what it's real function is. What else can I do to confirm that it is a weak charging system other than measure voltages with car on and off? Someone suggested starting the car and removing the neg term to see if engine dies as diagnostic test of alt but there must be other ways too. any help would be great, thanks.

CDT

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2002suzukiGSF600S
1985 190e 2.3