Hi, I have a 2009 corolla S with 85k miles on it. I was driving and the battery light and ABS light came on, and I also lost power steering. After I stopped shortly after, the car was completely dead. I jump started the car and it ran fine and drove for 2 miles then it all happened again. I towed it home and opened the alternator and bench tested it at autozone and they said it was running perfectly. I have a new battery from Costco on, so I went to Costco and they gave me another one. After installing the battery and the alternator, the car turned on and it was running fine with no lights, but when I measure the voltage on the battery it’s around 12.6-13 v and it’s the same on the alternator. I checked all the wires for voltage drop and nothing was wrong. Anyone have any idea what’s going on?
Alternator trouble
- Thread starter Abdoali_xavi
- Start date
Remove your battery cables and clean the terminal posts and cable clamps with a wire brush. Inspect the cable braid for corrosion. The ground cable contact point is critical where it's secured to the engine. If these are good, test the multi-function relay that controls the acc, battery charge circuit, FI, ignition, etc. You'll need to do some research to locate it on your model.
I took the alternator to O’Reilly and they bench tested it again, they said it passed but it was barely producing enough voltage on the bench without any load. I replaced the alternator and everything is running fine. The battery is charging and the alternator tests good on the car. I guess I shouldn’t have trusted autozone’s testing.
My car only has 85k! I thought Toyota Alternators would last like 200k but I do live in Texas and it’s always under more load. I bought a remanufactured alternator from O’Reilly for 183$ and it has limited life time warranty. If you have some tools you can try to disassemble it and check each part of the alternator, there are very detailed Vids on YouTube from alternator man and some other channels. If you are having similar issues to mine, it’s not that hard to pull off the alternator and take it to O’Reilly to bench test it.
thank you. I will look into mine. online rebuilt, do not think they are new at all today, even though they claim to say new. Lol got the car started but will retry and ride her. charged the bat on a solar pane 13.25 on a foul weather day lol. I am sure the voltage drop is the belt, alt or something else
BTW how is the car holding up? with the new one
BTW how is the car holding up? with the new one