For quite awhile I have been having problems with my car's battery dying, like the matter of one day not being driven or sometimes just day to day. It was really bad and the dealer said that my SLP Fan switch was messed up and constantly drawing power...once that was unhooked it was a LOT better. However, the battery is still dead when I don't drive it for just one day and today it was dead at like 2 pm when I last had it out at 11pm last night! WTF?!? I'm sick of this......When I was stopped in traffic today with the radio and A/C the voltmeter would drop all the way down to the point that it was just barely above the first line IN THE RED. Not barely in or almost in the red, but in the red far enough to just about hit the line that is like 3/4 of the way through the red. Do you think it's my alt or my battery?? I had similar problems back when I got the car three years ago and a new battery cleared it all up until last summer. Thoughts?

PS If this continues I'll take it somewhere and find out once school is out and I go home.

 

How old's the battery? It might not take a charge anymore...
If it's a new battery, then maybe you have a bad alt or constant drain on the system.

If I were to guess, I'd say bad alt since your volt gauge is reading so low...

 

Battery is about 2.5 years old. I really don't know what to think. First I think it's the battery not holding a charge because i'd trickle charge it and it'd still not start the car (though that was before fan switch removal) and then I think it's the alternator because of the very low voltmeter
Dangit. Can Autozone figure out which one it is??? Back when I was home I took it to local autozone and there were only women working and they didn't know how to work the machine they said to test the alternator (which I believe they should be able to do there.......).

 

I'm leaning towards alternator. If you take it to autozone, they can hook it up to test the alternator. If auto zone can't i KNOW one of the other places can...im leaning more towards the alternator resistor capacitator thing not working....mine went out. Make sure you aren't constantly pulling power first though. If it is the battery, Get a red top Optima, and be happy with the results!
Tim

 

I second that.its the alt.happen to me last year.