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Stop blaming the alternator when your battery dies after a stereo install
I've pulled three cars out of my shop this month where the owner already swapped an alternator and a battery trying to fix a dead electrical system. Every single time it was a bad ground strap between the engine block and the frame. I saw one truck with a braided cable that looked fine until I touched it and the strands just crumbled into dust. You can test it easy with a voltmeter, put one lead on the battery negative and the other on the block, then crank the engine. If you see more than 0.5 volts drop, that strap is your problem. Charging system parts are expensive, and I hate telling a customer they wasted $180 on a part they didn't need. How many of you check grounds before you sell a customer an alternator, or do you just throw parts at it like the last guy did?
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derek_green325d ago
You ever notice how the cheap fix is almost always hiding in the last place anyone looks? Same reason I spent two hours chasing a wifi problem that turned out to be a loose cable, we all want the fancy answer when the boring one does the job.
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