Voltage Problem

[unapanther]

Two weeks ago, my voltage indicator came on saying I was down to 12.5 volts. Within a few minutes the indicator went off and no further problems.

Yesterday, it came on again and began slowly dropping...12.3...11.9... ultimately it got to around 10 volts and the turn signals wouldn't work and when I finally got home, the car died (I give the car credit for knowing when it was home!).

It's a new battery and I noticed the ground cable was a bit loose and tightened it. Could this alone be the problem? Additionally, I was wondering if anyone had any issues jump starting the Vette; I had a shop burn out my dash and was told that repeated jumping of the vehicle was the culprit... $800 later.

Thanks for any insight!

 

[unapanther]

I haven't done anything as of yet; I'll jump the car this weekend and see what happens. Thanks for the quick reply!

 

[John Robinson]

Jumping the car

I am curious are you going to jump the car from front to back or side to side

 

[garth64]

I'd check the voltage now while the engine is not running with a voltmeter; then disconnect one side of the battery and check the voltage again after a half hour or so; If the voltage on the disconnected battery comes up to normal you'd have to start looking for something that's drawing it down. If you do jump start it put a voltmeter on the battery while it's running, if it's lower than normal (probably 13 volts or so), it may be a diode gone bad in the alternator; these are easy enough to check and replace.

 

[vette-dude]

I would also suspect the alternator as a culprit. Have you had it checked or checked it yourself to see if it is putting out the juice to charge the batt.?

Randy

 

[jmccloud]

Loose battery terminal

Everything in the responses is true. And you could be the victim of a loose battery cable. Tighten the cable, charge the battery, start the car and measure the voltage at the battery; or read the digital voltmeter if you have one in your Corvette. If it's dropping while running, get an alternator or rebuild it if you can do it yourself.

 

[HPG]

If the battery was the problem, don't charge the battery with the alternator. You should charge it with a battery charger. When the battery is dead, and you run the car to charge it, the alternator regulator runs at full charge and this can weaken or ruin the alternator.

 

[John Robinson]

Voltage

I just had a battery go bad in the wifes car. On Sun it was fine. Mon night went out to go to dinner and there was nothing, I mean not the radio or courtesy lights. When I got home I did as suggested I disconnected the cables and took a voltage reading of the battery. It was flat dead. Since I had bought the battery at Advance Auto I took it out of the car to them. They put it on a test and tried to recharge it. Apparently they have to have the charger give them a number in order to pro rate their batteries. In my case the charger would kick out and not charge the battery. Yup my 6 year battery was gone at 3 years. New battery installed everything is fine. This is not the first time I have had a battery completely fail.:crazy