im a girl and i cant figure this out

[talongrl16g]

im so lost guys and i need some help the other night i was driving normaly and my dash lights went out. the a couple of min. go by and me headlights quit working. now my windows wont roll up any one have any ideas? i just got a new sterio put in and and i thought that might have something to do with it. all the fuses are working and i cant seem to locate and relay. if anyone can tell me where the headlight relay is or if anyone has had this problem before i would really like to hear how it was fixed thanks alot

 

[DiabloRT]

under the hood you will find a fuse/ fusible link for the alternator. Check that

 

[ben90tsi]

That same stuff happend when my alternator went out, get it tested to see if it crapped out on you

 

[DSMgurlie]

That same stuff happend when my alternator went out, get it tested to see if it crapped out on you

Yea I was gonna say the same thing

 

[leakyfaucet]

Test your alternator. Start the car up, and pull off one cable from a battery terminal and set is aside (but not on a metal surface, try to let it dangle somewhere). If your car dies here, then your alternator is dead. If it still runs, try turning everything on all at once. If anything seems slow or doesn't seem to be getting enough electricity, your alternator is on it's way out.

Pick one up at autozone with a lifetime warranty and never pay for another one! They're actually fairly easy to put in.

 

[saw wave analog]

since you just had a radio put in its also wuite likely that something live is grounded out somewhere, that will suck the life out of your elictrical system and eventually kill your battery and alternator as well. the exact same thing heppened to me and it was from removing my a/c from an old car, one of the brackets grouned out on the frame and slowly killed my battery and alternator. let us know when you find the problem

 

[steve]

Being a Girl has nothing to do with it, I can tell you plenty of Guys have asked the same question.

Please don't follow leakyfaucet suggested alternator test procedure, it works but it has a large risk of blowing the rest of the electronics in your car if your alternator is working. The simple test is to just measure the voltage at the battery. If it's about 13 volts or more the alternator is charging, it may still be weak but that all the other test will tell you and there is no risk. Under no case should you remove the positive terminal first or by itself on a negative grounded car. Again the risk is far too high of shorting to the car.

Steve

 

[jott5555]

nice tital... today i looked at her car.. all fuses and relays looked good and we swapped ne out that were questionable.. personally i came to the conclusion the place that installed her dvd/stero recently tapped into the same circuit as the lights ect...

i think its shorting somewhere..they did a sloppy install and thats causeing the short.. i said to return to the installer and have them double check their work..

 

[JATBarandgrill]

alternator for sure. Either the 100 amp blue fuse under the hood on the passenger side, which is held by two small bolts. Check really closely, infact pop the little clear plastic cover off to make sure the fuse didnt blow. If its not that, then most likely the alt went bad.

 

[leakyfaucet]

Please don't follow leakyfaucet suggested alternator test procedure, it works but it has a large risk of blowing the rest of the electronics in your car if your alternator is working.

Well, I've done this proceedure to hundreds of cars in a shop without one "blowing the rest of the electrionics." There are fuses, which will protect the electronics in case of an overload or if the voltage regulator fails. And fuses don't just explode instantly. Depending on how far the voltage is over their rating, it can take up to two minutes for one to blow. So you run very little risk of even blowing a fuse.

I've never had any problems with this ever. So why do you think this poses a serious risk? Have you fried your harness by doing this proceedure? Have you heard from someone on the internet that it's dangerous?

 

[Mike1992]

Well, I've done this proceedure to hundreds of cars in a shop without one "blowing the rest of the electrionics." There are fuses, which will protect the electronics in case of an overload or if the voltage regulator fails. And fuses don't just explode instantly. Depending on how far the voltage is over their rating, it can take up to two minutes for one to blow. So you run very little risk of even blowing a fuse.

I've never had any problems with this ever. So why do you think this poses a serious risk? Have you fried your harness by doing this proceedure? Have you heard from someone on the internet that it's dangerous?

On my old laser, not a single fuse popped when the battery caught the hood and friend the entire electrical system. Aint that a bi***.

 

[SpeedFreak03]

I've never had any problems with this ever. So why do you think this poses a serious risk? Have you fried your harness by doing this proceedure? Have you heard from someone on the internet that it's dangerous?

Well, even though you haven't had any problems, Steve does know his stuff, especially electrical wise. The easiest way would be to check it with a volt/multi-meter like Steve described, or if you don't have access to one, doesn't AutoZone test the alternators for free? I think it would be safer to pull it and get it tested or do the multimeter test. Also, I have read that with most newer cars, when you unhook the battery, they still might die AND have a working alternator, but I don't have any first hand experience with this.

Back to the original question, I agree, it sounds like your alternator is going. I've noticed when alternators go on DSMs, some weird stuff happens, such as headlights die, instead of the whole car just taking a shit. But like leakyfaucet said (man im quoting so many people today ) if you go with a rebuilt Autozone one with a lifetime warranty, that's probably your best bet. One thing with the rebuilt alternators though - sometimes you exchange them like 2-3 times before you actually get a good one. I think they will test it for free before you take it home if you want them to.

 

[jott5555]

the reason im opposed to the alt idea is because the car started and ran fine for almost a week during is problem. now i know enough to know what a battery has about 1hr at most of use before its dead.. well hers isnt dieing the alt is chargeing it. now i didnt check the output of the alt with a volt meter but the car has ran completly fine for over a week of being frequentily used.

so next idea?

 

[steve]

I've never had any problems with this ever. So why do you think this poses a serious risk? Have you fried your harness by doing this proceedure? Have you heard from someone on the internet that it's dangerous?

Funny from a guy on the internet suggesting the procedure. I've lost my best link going into detail on the inductive spikes that can be caused by disconnecting the battery but there a few below that mention load dumps, I won't go into the fact that the battery is a huge filter capacitor for removing the alternator ripple from the electrical system or discuss the danger of the terminal sparking while removing it and igniting the hydrogen gas released while charging.

How about Bosch
http://www.boschusa.com/AutoParts/FAQs/AlternatorsStarters/
How about the ASA (Automotive Service Assocation)
http://www.asashop.org/autoinc/aug2000/techtotech.htm
How about the FAA
http://www.faa.gov/certification/aircraft/av-info/dst/43-13/Ch_11-03.doc

A few other places
http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?n=158,281&sid=281&article=7030
http://in.classifieds.yahoo.com/static/autos?page=main5.html
http://www.totallychrysler.com/chrysler/chrysler-archive/chrysler/chrysler-p-747.html
http://www.sto-p.com/pfp/pfp-transients.htm
http://www.cartalk.com/content/columns/Archive/2003/April/02.html
http://www.pacificpowerbatteries.com/aboutbatts/Car Battery FAQ/carfaq9.html
http://www.forparts.com/techbattery.htm
http://www.vtr.org/maintain/alternator-overview.html
http://www.batteryweb.com/faq.cfm
http://www.raceproven.com/alternators2.htm
http://www.truckpartseast.com/techtips.htm
http://www.swedishbricks.net/700900FAQ/Electrical-Starting1.html
http://www.electricbob.com/page3.htm

You are free to continue doing what you like, I'm not trying to sway you, just caution others from taking your bad advice.

Steve

 

[leakyfaucet]

In this girl's case, she probably doesn't have a multimeter, and taking the car to autozone is a huge risk because she could break down and jumping the car won't fix an alternator problem. Then she'd be stuck.

I seriously doubt this one in a million chance of something breaking by doing my alternator test will happen to her. I'm not denying that it can happen, I'm just saying I've never seen or heard of it happening.

 

[jott5555]

instead of bickering like little girls, look at the information in the thread. ok ive tested the car in person. looked at the relays and some of the wireing. heres a overview so you can get back on track and possaibly make something relivent out of this instead of trying to act tuff behind your keyboard

*relays good
*fuses in dash and underhood are all good
*car has been drivin on a good battery and a good alt with no chargeing prolem for a week at least with no other issues
*the "short" that caused the headlight windows and dash lights to go out happened after in dash dvd/lcd player that was tapped into the DASH WIREING CIRCUIT

now what i havnt covered look back and read, and please grow up or stop posting and wasteing peoples time.

 

[steve]

*the "short" that caused the headlight windows and dash lights to go out happened after in dash dvd/lcd player that was tapped into the DASH WIREING CIRCUIT

Sorry Jott but that's not much to go with. I assume you mean they tapped into the audio circuit perhaps shorting the rheostat or the connection to the taillight relay.

What else doesn't work, since I don't see a clear connection between the dash lights, the headlights and the power windows right off the bat. Hazzard lights? Glove box light?

Both the dash lights and the headlights use Sub Fusable Link 7 but the power windows are on SFL 5 and like I said right now I don't see anything in common.

Steve

 

[jott5555]

thats the problem. nor do i.. the only things on the whole car that arnt working are the headlight both brights and dims the dash lights and the electric windows both drivers and passanger side.

im stumped.shes commin back up possibly tommorw ill bust out the multimeter and start lookin around

 

[leakyfaucet]

instead of bickering like little girls, look at the information in the thread..................and please grow up or stop posting and wasteing peoples time.

What is your problem? There wasn't any bickering. Show me one post where we "bickered." That was what we grown-ups like to call a dis-a-gree-ment. So by suggesting things to do to solve her problem we were wasting people's times? Okay, jackass.