Never seen this happen before..............

[pmkls2]

Ok, I would just like to start by saying that I have been a technician for the last 10 years now and I have never once seen something like this happen. I was preparing to go on vacation the other day and decided to wash my car but I was too lazy to do it myself so I went to an automatic car wash. The one I went to I have been to several times before as it is down the road from my house less than a mile away. As I drove in I drove through the undercarraige wash like normal and didnt notice anything unusual. While I was in there I noticed my A/C fan wasnt blowing very well after a minute. Soon my stereo started flicking on and off and I thought that something just got wet under the hood. As I started pulling out I turned on my wipers to clear off the windshield and they went extremely slow and that is when I realized that I had no electrical power. I got the car home and started checking it out and I found that the alternator had fried as I expected. It was a lifetime replacement so I got it replaced at no cost so that was no big deal. However, I have never seen an alternator go out due to getting wet. Everything was working fine until I actually drove into the car wash which leads me to believe that its getting wet fried it. I was just confounded because I have hosed down many engine compartments in my day without once ever having a bit of trouble from a charging system ( wet distributors is a different story ). I just thought I would share that because I found it very odd.....................

[ricebike]

same thing happen to my car recently...

but not in a carwash/ was extremely humid, so I had the ac running as usual (still running r12...cooolld)

dusk came around, no warning from the idiot lights-battery & brake lights go on simultaneously to divert the driver's attention

i turned on my headlights/ then turned on my wipers to wash some of the bugs off the windshield... radio cut off/ lights became dim/ idle drops...

guessed that I was running under battery power. took my motorcycle battery tender ~2 days to bring it back up to 12.xx V

crank car & noticed that Voltage stayed same. fuses checked. took alt to autozone=verified everything in it was dead

[steve s14]

never seen it happen with a factory alternator but i have seen plenty of strange stuff happen with aftermarket ones. i've seen some that were bad right out of the box and others that work for about a month and then just start to die out.usually, quality parts don't come cheap and in the long run are worth the extra money for peace of mind.

[ricebike]

steve,

it happened to our factory alternators!

but hey, being 17 years old and ~210K miles later, i'm sorta impressed it lasted that long...

as for aftermarkets/ ~10% would be bad from the box... just d/t shipping mishaps (like using the box as a bowling ball or something like that in the warehouse)

I make sure they bench test the new ones in front of me before I go home & install the unit.

going for a junkyard unit was my mistake, eventhough they carry a lifetime unit & was cheaper than the rebuilt ones
Modified by ricebike at 5:55 PM 7/28/2006

[pmkls2]

mine was an advance replacement that i installed in dec '04 so it probably only had 15k miles on it. like i said it, going out isnt surprising i just havent seen one do that just because it got wet. of course it could all be coincidence but i hadnt had even a hint of trouble before i went into the carwash. lucky for me it had a lifetime warranty so i didnt have to shell out another $125 or even a penny for that matter

[hpmachine]

it prolly got wet, arced some wires, and killed it. on my 68 mustang, whenever it rained, the ground on the battery would arc everytime i tried to start it. it just needed a better connection. one time i decided to clean the engine on my stang with a sprayer... big mistake. somehow i sprayed water through the air cleaner and into the carb. wouldn't run over 2000 rpm for like 2 miles! (but i hear water can clean the carbon off of the tops of pistons and valves)

[Silvia007]

You know, your car does not drain the battery that quick, your alt probably failed down the road and when you hit the wash, your battery probably drained down to that level.

When your alt fails, your car will run for a bit until the battery completely drains, If your vehicle uses enough electrical power to drain a battery that quick, the reason why your alt failed is not because of it getting wet, it's because your car continuously use more power then your alt can generate, meaning a possible short somewhere or you are powering a high powered audio system.

[pmkls2]

well i have dual electric fans and the third condenser fan that were running the entire time. plus i do have a high powered stereo system. all of these items have been on the car since shortly after replacing the alternator the last time. the car has operated for over a year that way without a single problem. the battery is new but not due to it going dead. i replaced it because it was leaking acid around the case. alternators dont "fail" due to high current draws. they fail because a component goes bad. car batteries go dead because of the car using more energy than the alternator can produce. i have recently checked into a high output alternator because i have the need for one but the alternator did fail and was not just overwhelmed by the current draw. i also checked my voltages since installing the new alternator and I know that i have a high resistance in the wire coming from the alt to the battery somewhere so i am sure that contributed to the failure of the old one.

[Florida240sx]

On a fully charged battery you can go 40-60miles.. With stock radio and headlights on. Just dealt with this last week. The alternator wasn't charging the battery, andhe drove 60miles each time before the battery died...

[pmkls2]

i could go quite a while without the a/c on or at a steady speed but i was running the a/c which kicks all 3 of my fans on and my stereo system was on ( not loud but running ) both of which draw some serious current this is why it didnt take long to kill the battery. also the car drove all the way home just fine i just lost power on all accessories. i still didnt kill the battery completely just enough to not want to power my amps or my fans

[ricebike]

ok, so u sorta answered your own ? on why it failed on you prematurely...

Y didn't you "upgrade" to the quest alternator? it puts out 110 Amps of power vs stock 80 A 240sx alternator.

brokeas240sx (spelling? had a full writeup and confirmation that it works & I think the price is similar to boot!

[pmkls2]

hmmm i didnt know anything about the quest alternator upgrade but that is interesting to know. but for not much more money i can upgrade to a 140 amp or larger gm style 1 wire alternator. i have found several places on the internet that make brackets to install them on a dual foot denso style mount. as far as premature failure that didnt surprise me it was just that it did at approximately the same time i went through the carwash.

[ricebike]

P, I apologize for not linking it... sometimes my searhing skillz are teh sux

BOOYAH! click on me!

[onosqv]

aw, you beat me to the linking... .

The alternator is worth it. Runs all sort of **** on my car, hahaha.

And I hope you aren't ALWAYS running your dual fans... they are only made to run when they need to - they'll die prematurely also if you just run them 100% of the time, as well as possibly making your car run too cool. That's another story though.

[pmkls2]

the fans are wired to turn on 2 different ways. they are wired to an adjustable thermostat and they are also wired to turn on with the a/c compressor. a problem i have noticed is that with the ac on the compressor rarely cycles when it is hot out so it basically runs non stop in the summer so i dont use it much. im getting a little off topic now but the ac has a new compressor, accumulator, and expansion valve. i believe i have a problem there with something else like a cycling switch or the thermo control relay but i dont have a clue. i have converted the system to r134 and it is charged to the correct amount i believe it was about 1.5 lbs or something close. the system works perfectly on the interstate and when it is cooler out but at this time of the year it is wortless in the mid day heat. anyhow when i was in the carwash the fans were running cuz i had the ac on at the time.

[ricebike]

<shrugs> aren't you supposed to subtract the r12 capacity when converting to r134A by about ~10%

???

[pmkls2]

yes you should use about 80-90% of the system capacity when converting to r134. i am not sure without looking but i believe that the underhood decal on my car said 1.6-1.8lbs or it may have been 1.8-2.0. anyhow yes i did charge it at a lower amount than the r12 recommended charge i just havent fiddled with the system in a while and i forget the exact numbers. but for now i have other concerns than the ac and i will get back on it at a later date

[pmkls2]

just an update on the charging system. i installed a 4 gauge wire to run directly from the alt to the battery and my voltage jumped up there a bit so i definately have high resistance in the stock harness somewhere. im going to keep it like it is for now because im going to be hacking up the harness eventually anyhow.

[pmkls2]

another update, i was reading the write up on the quest alt upgrade and i noticed something that i dont like much. with a new alternator i only saw a max of 13.6v ever. as soon as i installed the 4 gauge wire my voltage jumped up to 14v. i was reading on the quest upgrade that most people see 14.2-14.6v after the upgrade and close to what i got before the upgrade. the only thing that bothers me is that i worked for GM for 6 years solid (3 of which were spent as an electronics tech) and during that time i never saw a car in good condition go below 13.8v. most GM alternators regardless of output will run 14.2-14.6v steady at idle. this is why i am going to opt for a 1 wire gm high output alt instead of using a nissan one when i upgrade. i will feel more comfortable with the amount of electronics i will be running that way. just my 2 cents..............

[Malac0da13]

my stock alt. i get like 14v sumptin i think at idle

[pmkls2]

thats the way it should be. as a general rule of thumb when i was checking out a vehicle if it didnt have at least 14v at idle then i would start inspecting the charging system. thats why i was a little disturbed at my 13.6 with no loads and then to hear that others measure the same with their vehicles

[ricebike]

hmm, didn't caught that when I skimmed that upgrade.

I opted for just a direct replacement since I don't power much than what was stock, except for upgraded stereo/speakers & mebbe adding an aftermarket driving light system.

yup, my new #s were up to 14.2-14.6 during idle of 700rpm-1000rpm range.

i'll see what others w/ the quest alternator say about that...

[pmkls2]

well my reason for wanting a high end alternator is that currently i have a 2000+ watt (rms rating) stereo system and dual electric fans and I plan on continuing to upgrade my stereo and adding things such as hid lights etc in the future so i would like a bulletproof charging system for obvious reasons. the direct replacement is a more logical way to go for most but i need more power. it will probably be overkill but that seems to be my specialty. anyhow i never expected this thread to go this long but i feel it has been fruitful. i know i learned something