In my search regarding this problem, I'm beginning to become suspect of my alternator, but I have not eliminated other possibilities yet. I would like some feedback from some of you more knowledgeable folks, please.

My car's electrical system keeps getting reset and it seems to be getting upset by something. I first noticed that, when I'd get in my car to go home from work, that the trip odometer would be reset. Then one day, while driving the car home and taking a turn, the entire electrical system reset itself (twice).

I usually come out to the car to find the trip odo reset, but this morning it was worse. When I keyed the unlock on my remote, the car unlocked, but there were no lights. I get in the car, key in the ignition... nothing. No dash lights, no click from a solenoid... nothing. After a few seconds, power comes on and I start her up just fine. Fast forward to parking the car: as soon as I turn the key to shut off the engine, all of the electrical goes dead again. I sit for a bit and, low and behold, it comes on again.

I had a look at the battery, which is fairly new and has never been mistreated. Connections are solid and look clean (will disconnect battery and examine them when I get home). The only other change is that I recently had the amp in my car replaced (was stolen) with an identical model. I'm beginning to think that the tech who installed it didn't ground it in the original location I did when I first installed the system, and that capacitor discharge leakage could be futzing up the electrical system.

The last possibility, based on what I've read here, is the alternator, and I don't know much of the signs of alternator failure.

Any help or input would be much appreciated.

 

Disconnect the amp for a few days and see how it reacts.

 

Before my alternator went, my trip odometer would reset itself every time I started the car.


Is your voltmeter in the dash giving a good reading?

 

My battery meter works ok.

 

When the car is running, the reading is good, yes. I'll need to check to see what it reads when I just have the key turned one position, and only have electrical on.

 

I would not go out and buy an alternator just yet. You can go to Autozone and have them test your alternator for free though, that would be a good idea.

When mine broke, it was fairly obvious. When i started the car, the battery would start dying and i needed to give gas to keep the car running. RPMs were dropping really low. Alternator wasn't completely broken, but was only giving out half the amount of current it is supposed to.

 

I would go get the free test mentioned above before replacing it. When my alternator died I was driving at the time and all of the gauges started bouncing back and forth, the speedo pointed directly to 155mph, the radio started doing funky stuff and the engine started acting like I was running out of gas. Luckily I was about 2 blocks from the dealer when this occurred. I have 35k miles on my '00 z28 and on my second alternator already. I went through 3 alternators on my '94 Camaro. Dealer charged somewhere between 5 and $600 to replace it!