My car recently started acting up

Tiny
MELRY
  • MEMBER
  • 2005 DODGE STRATUS
  • 125,000 MILES
My car recently started acting up. While I am driving my battery light with come on and everytime I turn my car off and back on the battery light will go away. Just recently after the battery light comes on the dash lights will dim and flicker, the radio will start shorting out, and the ABS, Brake, and Anti-traction light on dashboard will flash. Nothing is constant and when I turn my car off everything clears. It doesn't happen all the time. I had someone pull the code from my computer and it states that my car is giving off to much voltage. Any idea of where to start? Alternator, sensor, battery, wiring, voltage regulator?
Wednesday, December 26th, 2012 AT 10:51 PM

3 Replies

Tiny
CARADIODOC
  • MECHANIC
  • 33,871 POSTS
What was the exact fault code number? The symptoms all suggest low system voltage and the common cause is worn brushes inside the alternator.
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Wednesday, December 26th, 2012 AT 11:19 PM
Tiny
MELRY
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  • 2 POSTS
Code was brought up as 0563 / from what I was told it states I am having high system voltage. Any suggestions? Have been contemplating sensor inside alternator or alternator itself. Have no idea if my car has or needs a voltage regulator in computer.
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Thursday, December 27th, 2012 AT 11:42 PM
Tiny
CARADIODOC
  • MECHANIC
  • 33,871 POSTS
You're right, it does say high voltage. We don't run into that very often. To add to the misery, Chrysler used the same circuit configuration from 1970 through at least 2000, and a simple grounded wire could cause that, but they changed the design by 2002 or 2003 so that can't happen. The only thing that can cause high voltage is the voltage regulator inside the Engine Computer. It's either defective or it's responding to incorrect information. I haven't worked on one of this design yet so I don't know what "normal" is, but I would start by measuring the voltages on the two smaller terminals on the back of the alternator while the engine is running. I think you're going to find 0 volts on one of them and typically something between 4 - 11 volts on the other one. The greater the difference between them, the higher the output voltage will be on the fat bolted-on wire.

Measure the battery voltage while the engine is running. If it is lower than the voltage on the alternator's output terminal, look for a blown or loose bolted-in fuse in the under-hood fuse box. The battery voltage must remain between 13.75 and 14.75 volts. If it is high, either there's a problem with the wire the Engine Computer senses system voltage on, (so it thinks system voltage is too low and it's trying to bump it up), or the voltage regulator in the computer is defective. It's rare to have a regulator circuit failure, but if the sensing wire has a problem, the system voltage might be too high but that code wouldn't set because the computer would be thinking the voltage is low or normal.
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Friday, December 28th, 2012 AT 5:27 AM

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