Howdy, I have a Ford Taurus 2003 SE with 139000 miles and an automatic transmission. The other day the red battery light came on and went off. I checked the alternator and battery yesterday and both were fine, I had just replaced both about 6-7 months ago. Today on my way to work the light came back on and the speedometer stopped working and it slowly lost power and turned off. After waiting a little while it was able to be turned back on but I turned it back off as to let the battery charge so I can move it back home tomorrow. What could possibly be the issue?
i worked at a place where we had some 40 of these 2002 Taurus and some of them had the exact symptom you described. The alternators charged but technically not enough AND also did not trip the warning lite that it was not charging enough. We ended up always replacing the alternator. The deal with some of the electronics dying when driving is that the alternator is not charging enough and all the electronic hardware is fighting to get voltage to keep working. One by one they die off and then the ECM quites from lack of voltage....car dies.....while the car sits...residual voltage in the battery builds up...then the car COULD start or maybe not but some items light up on the dash and maybe work. Also one more factor is the plug in to the alternator...make sure its not burned as then it causes resistance and another set of problems masked as an alternator failure.
I’ll make sure to check the plug then tomorrow again! Atleast I got warranty though on the alternator. Could it be something wrong with the voltage regulator in the alternator because I could tell when I stepped on the gas a little the light would go away?
Yes its entirely possibe the VR is bad but as a general rule...sometimes the VR can cause damage to the alternator so as a fleet operation we replace the whole thing as if its warranted..it comes back as credit for the whole thing. Now in your case you should take back the alt and explain that it displays a dim indicator and see what they will do...they may test it and claim its fine...Sometimes the test bench is not the same real world scenario but the parts place has its guidlines dictated by the alt vendor so what can i say ? Try this angle and see what happens..
Just wanted to come back and thank you! The alternator was bad and luckily Duralast has lifetime warranty’s so it only was about an hour to get it replaced!
Alright...things went well....Happy New Years ya hear..