I don't know what resources you have available, but if it were me...

Grab a multi-meter and check voltage at the battery with key off. If below 12 volts put on a battery charger overnight. Of course, if you have another vehicle you can take the battery in to Autozone or such and have it tested. They have also recharged batteries for me.

Once battery is fully charged, start car and check voltage again. It should be around 14 volts with car running. Take car back to test site and they can test the entire charging system.

A bad alternator will not charge the battery and the car will die when the voltage gets too low. It may also kill a new battery by draining it. New battery may have failed. Check negative cable for heat. A bad ground or battery connector will cause all these problems. Your jiggling comment may lead you in the right direction.

 

If it was an alternator - it would had left you stranded the first time or possible second time since the battery would had been depleted and the alternator wouldn't be able to supply enough charge to maintain what is left.

If it was a Battery - Same situation as above however if you got a semi dead battery or bad cell, you could be getting weird issues such as random starting issues.

If it was starter - it wouldn't explain why the car shut off while it was running and I don't suspect (based off your description) that it is starter




I would check the easy stuff first. Disconnect both positive and negative connector and clean it well. Use a wire brush on both the battery terminal and the connector. If you have a strip bolt on the connector , do not dismiss this. I've had connectors that was stripped and clean that still caused random starting issue (i.e. single 'click' or nothing at all but still having interior and exterior lights!).

 

If it was an alternator - it would had left you stranded the first time or possible second time since the battery would had been depleted and the alternator wouldn't be able to supply enough charge to maintain what is left.

Uhhhh yeaaaaah. I'm going to have to go ahead and sort of ... disagree with ya there. Read that like you're watching "Office Space."


My vote is: ALTERNATOR. However, since the battery has been crushed that many times, it is likely either going to be dead, or not live the life it could have lived. Starter batteries don't tend live long after being drained. But what makes me disagree with your quote above, is that a good healthy battery (i.e. only 6 months old) is going recover somewhat after a draining. What was happening (IMHO) is that the car was running totally off the battery with no alternator to keep the battery maintained. And it ran as long as it could until the battery could not sustain.


So, alternator for sure (my opinion).




7milesout

 

I'm thinking dead cell . But also check the wire that goes from positive battery post to the main fuse box. sometimes the connection there can become loose or corroded.

 

So first off, LOVE Office Space, that made my day.

A lot of people local who I've talked to are saying that the STARTER sounds like the main culprit. What I may have to do before taking things apart is, like many have said, clean the hell out of the connections. Then I need to do a proper WHOMPING on the starter, not just the polite tapping that I did.

If that doesn't fix it or at least diagnose the problem more accurately, it will be time to take things apart.
- I'd love if it were the battery. They have a 3 year replacement, so if that is the problem, it's a free fix
- I'd have to remove the battery anyway to test the starter. And the starter LOOKS old, too. Not stock either. So it's a likely culprit.
- But since it's all on the fritz anyway, why not just pop the alternator off while I'm at it? They'll test all of them.

Thanks for all of the help, I'll keep everyone posted as soon as I get a chance to tear things apart.
(and if there weren't a core charge, I'd love to do to the faulty part what Peter, Samir, and Michael did to the printer in Office Space)

 

I have a 1999 Camry. I had a problem with it blowing the alternator fuse and therefore the battery wouldn't charge. After driving the car for a short time trying to make it to my destination the car started to run rough and the transmission didn't shift properly because the proper voltage wasn't being supplied to the computer. I would guess that if it was running okay after jumping it, the problem would be the battery or a poor cable connection. I would be sure the battery is okay before looking at the alternator or the starter. Just my 2 cents.

 

Battery of battery cables. Check to see if the alternator is putting out about 14+ volts. Also check ground connections.

 

You have a bad battery--even though you replaced it 5 months ago. I bought a new Maxx battery at Walmart in early December, and by December 15th, it went bad. Car would not start. Set a multimeter on a 15VDC scale and you can see which cell is bad by opening the caps and checking for voltage across each cell. Just stick the probes right into the electrolyte (water) and press the probes onto the plates. The bad cell(s) will not add another 2.1VDC to the multimeter. A friend of mine also bought a WalMart MaXX battery that went out after 5 months.

 

What probably happen was the battery might had been old stock. A battery not at full charge capacity is not good for it. Even though it may start the car fine, never charged fully . I tend to swap my car every so often, so the car that sits a month will have a tender on them. I've also been making a habit even if the battery is rather new, I throw a tender on it when I can.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/archive/what_causes_car_batteries_to_fail

 

It's not the battery. I took it in and they tested it, comes back okay, but needing charged. So it's charging. And as it were, I actually got it a year and a half ago, but it has a 3 year warranty, so that's good.

Down to the STARTER or the ALTERNATOR... and it's leaning towards alternator, honestly.

I'm gonna clean off connections while I wait for the battery to be charged.

 

OKAY...

- Battery was replaced with brand new one under warranty
- Replaced the alternator with a new reman

I get the alternator in, check the pre-start voltage, 12.6.
Start the car... 12.1... 11.94... but not 14.

The car doesn't want to stay running. It idles low, then dies.
I tried disconnecting the battery for 10 minutes, reconnecting and trying again and it's the same.

Where do I look now? This one has me stumped. And I sure as hell don't want to spend a mint chasing problems.

 

I think your alternator is junk, where exactly did it come from. without 13.5-14v off the alternator your diagnosis stops there and you need another alternator. just because its new does not mean its OK. please tell me its a denso or toyota part, yes?
rockauto.com carries Denso at very affordable prices........

 

+1 on ^.
key on, engine off batt should be around 12.66 vdc for 100% charged (11.89 is fully discharged btw)
at idle should be around 14.2vdc.
you got a badly rebuilt alternator.
hope you got a warranty with it.
tony

 

Pending testing the alternator my money is on the battery terminals.

 

I'll be honest, it's the AutoZone house brand. I have no problem pulling it and returning it, but I want to make sure that's the reason and not something else.

EDIT:
I just went out and checked the car. It started right up, I turned on accessories, then checked the voltage when running: 14.22v! So it's working.
Anyone have an explanation of that one? Ghosts? Wizards?

 

I've had decent reman alternators. I just keep swapping them out at oreilly since shipping a Denso one is not cost effective for me. Granted, I might be using 2-3....even 4x the swap in store warranty for the alternators, although if the Denso one somehow gave out, I'd be stuck with it.

So far only 1 oreilly reman was tested bad so it's not too bad.

When you removed the alternator, was there a lot of black dust on the old one on the belt facing size of the alternator?

 

When you removed the alternator, was there a lot of black dust on the old one on the belt facing size of the alternator?

No, not really. There was some random noises coming from it over the past few weeks. I wasn't sure if it was from the alternator, per se, but I heard noises. Last night, when the car crapped out on me at AutoZone, it was making some noise from that area. And pretty much, all the signs pointed to bad alternator.

I'm still puzzled as to why the car wouldn't idle right after the swap, other than the fact that the computer reset may have the car expecting a brand new everything, not stuff with 200k on it. But even more so, why does it all of the sudden work today?

I should probably take it out for a spin!

 

I did read a lot of things saying that low idle could be fixed by cleaning out the throttle body area helped because old buildup doesn't jive well with factory settings. Last night, I happened to take the box out and wipe things down, so that may have helped. But I think it's got a little learning to do and I'd have to scrub it much better than I did.

And I actually got a chance to look at the old alternator in the daylight and lo and behold, the belt side was very black. So yeah, if that indicates a breakdown in the alternator itself, no surprise there.

 

From what I've learned is excessive black dust around the alternator belt side could mean that the alternator belt might be slipping or misaligned. I'm not sure how else it can get misaligned though but I don't get any squealing or odd noise from my alternator.... Only my 2004 XLE V6 has this issue of going thru alternators....all my other cars are perfectly fine. I was going to get a new belt and see if it fixes the excessive black dust, thinking the dust can't be all too good for the alternator.

 

Had a similar issue with a 2000 Solara. Remember your jiggling comment? Those battery connectors can go bad and cause the battery to not charge and the engine to run rough due to poor connections. Sometimes it is the simple fix. That is what caused my problems. Check the connectors and the grounds.