Pewterpower

A few days ago my wife had some trouble starting the car. It eventually started, and hasn't happened again.

Then I noticed a "whine" in the engine bay that that seemed serp belt related. It was coming from the area of the PS pump. I checked the fluid and it wwas a little low. I added fluid but the whine didn't go away.

Then tonight, my son had the car, and he was playing the stereo without the motor running and killed the battery. His friend jumped it but it died 5 minuted later and had to be jumped again.

When he got it home, I noticed the volt dummy gage was not keeping up. If you let the engine idle, it would drop low. If you kept it revved, then the gage would stay up. But at idle, would slowly drop down low.

Sound like the alternator? But would it whine like that?

brapril714

iTrader: (1)

Mine is doing the same thing, of course it started 100miles from home. I went to O'reilly they tested it and showed bad diode only charging at 30amp. We charged the battery and drove home. Battery held like a champ. Retested and it still showed bad diode, but charging at 45amps. It started whining when the charge started droping, guess I'll be changing it this week.

Pewterpower

Mine seems to hold fine as long as the rpms are up, too. Its at idle that the needle wants to bottom out.

Adam96z

iTrader: (1)

Check all your battery and ground cables, and that someone did not strip out a battery terminal when tightening it. These can also cause the alternator to make an electrical whine. A mechanical whine is a different problem.

Blue01T/A

If you have to replace your alternator make sure you get a new one not a reman. All of the GM reman items have been bad lately. I went through 4 alternators in a week. Every time the RPMs went above 4000 it would pop the alternator. Got a new one instead of reman and voila. No problems since.

98TAjwh

iTrader: (4)

that definitely sounds like an alternator on it's way out.