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Bad alternator? Says Pepboys


armin922

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so i have a 02 pontiac bonneville wiht 97000 miles. Took the car to pepboys to have them take a look at it before i went out for a road trip this week to NC and they told me 1) the battery was bad and 2)alternator was going bad

 

So they told me the cost for both with labor would be 500 out the door. Of course i declined because the alternator on this car 3800 series 2 motor is cake as well as the battery. I didnt believe them so i went to autozone and had both tested. Of course the battery was bad so i had it replaced. The alternator is good. Well i just wanted to make sure the battery after i installed it read fine. I bought the battery at walmart. Went to autozone again and said the alternator was good and the battery was bad. Hmnm, idk what to do now. So i went to walmart service center and had them check it. Did it for free and they said the cranking amp was around 600 and supposed to be at 770 CCA. So they recharged it and now its reading 15.07. But i dont know why they need to recharge it if th ebattery is only a day old. Well im leaving to go out of town and this concerned me because i dont want the alternator to go bad when im going down to NC. I trust the tester i guess saying the alternator is good.

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those little hand held testers, are hit or miss due to the end user, and how it is setup. IMO, best way to test a battery is load testing it. yes most batterys can use a charge to bring them up to full potential.

 

15.07 is too high IMO. they must not have pulled the surface charge off the battery after charging.

 

and how did they go from saying the cranking amps are low, to giving you a battery voltage reading that is above normal? that makes no sense.

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did it read 15.07 on the tester with it running, after they charged the battery?

 

 

i would turn the headlights on for 10 seconds, and have them retest the charging system. this will pull the surface charge off the battery and give you a more accurate reading.

 

 

i still dont trust them little hand held testers. i'll stand by a vat-40 till i die.

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so how would i test both using a multimeter? And what should the voltage be?

 

The only type of tests you should be running with a multimeter on a battery is cell to cell or voltage drop on the cable. You need to load test it with a load tester.

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advanced does not ue a hand held tester they have a full electrical system tester so if i was u i would bring it there they test it ( under a load, free charging, and load on and off). it will test every posabilty for a failing battery or alternator... get it tested at advamced and see what the pringout they give u says.
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