car starts, dies, then runs again...

[GSEclipse06]

my friend just called me because as he and his gf were on their way back from buying her bone stock 93 tsi awd auto, they got several miles when they started having problems. the rear lights went out, the radio went out,, the cel kicked on and then it died. if you let it sit for a few minutes it'll start back up but it'll do it again. my friend (who is a novice mechanic like myself) says its not the batt or alt bc the car DOES start, though i think it coulod just be an almost-drained battery. kind of like a cell phone-its almost dead, turn it off and leave it off for sometime, it has a little more juice. anyone have any other possibilities? bad ground or something?

edit-i jsut spoke with him and he says its a fairly new battery in the car, adn when it dies if you dont wait to restart it you get nothing-no clicking or turning over, nothing.

 

[TALONTRAX]

Sounds like possibly an intermittent bad electrical connection somewhere. Tell him to check the battery cable ends, & the charging hot wire at the back of the alternator - I`ve heard of bad connections at that point cause similar issues.

 

[res7bequ]

dying alternator. Thats what mine did. With car running unplug the battery and if it dies bad alt/connection somewhere. If it keeps running bad batt or something else...

 

[Travi2506]

Hey guys, my daily driver (neon) wasactually doin the same thing. however. it won't start at all now. It'll try and crank and just barely start but won't hold itself and die off. Could it be the same thing?