So its stormy season up here in N. Cali and yesterday I was driving my car to and from work with the windshield wipers on both ways, the headlights coming home, and the phone charger plugged in... All was fine

This morning Im driving to work with the headlights on and briefly having the rear defroster on... Since the motor (or the circuit) for my front wipers are pretty f'd up I can either have it on or off and I have to time the blades when turning them off because theyll just stop wherever on the windshield when I do turn them off... When I was wiping the windshield today for whatever morning dew I notice that the wipers were running extremely sluggish... I get on the road and am running a good 1.5k-2k rpms and the wipers are still sluggish... Not only that, but the rear wiper is sluggish as well...

Now, whenever I hit the brakes I noticed the headlights and console panel lights dim... Some freeway time and a lot of worries later I was finally at work and had the car parked... I threw it in Nuetral and hit the gas up to 3k/3.5k rpms with the headlights, rear winshield wiper, and front windshield wiper on... Only then did I notice the all the lights glow brighter and the wipers moving at their regular speed (or close to it)

Thing is I have a new battery (maybe 3 months old) and a newly rebuilt alternator... My mechanic told me that he tested the new one with everything on (radio, phone charger, defroster, windshield wipers, headlights, etc etc) and found that my charge point was at 1.3 rpms

Whats the deal??? 2 months ago my car died out when I had my windshield wipers on, rear defroster, phone charger, and headlights on... Thats when I went and got the new alternator in and there werent any problems after that... The only other electronics I have is maybe a turbo timer (which was flickering on and off though I always keep it off), some stupid light thats supposed to come on when Im boosting (previous owner deal), the little light that glows around the cigarette lighter port, a light thats inside of my boost gauge (it dims with the console lights), and maybe the engine lights in the center of the dash... I dont have a radio and Im afraid to even go get one like I planned today because my car might die out on me again...

Could it just be the "wiring" of the car dieing out after all these years needing to be redone or is there something else Im missing??

 

I think I'm having the same problem, but alot worse. I heard of an high performance alternator being sold. But I was wondering where?

 

What voltage is your car at when all the options are on? If you have a non-turbo, just look at the gauge. If you have a turbo, you'll need to hook up a digital multimeter.

again- (as covered probably 50 times since January 1st) It should be at least 13.5 volts. Any less than that and the alt is not charging the battery. Any less than 12.6 volts and the alt is not even producing enough power to run the car.

And avoid rebuilt alts. Only buy new or remanufactured. Rebuilt alts mean that only parts that failed and a few other specific parts are replaced. Remanufactured means everything is replaced to bring it back to as new condition. Rebuilt alts tend to have a life span of about 3-12 months on a rotary engine.

Silverotor sells high output (100 amp) alts from FDs. If you have additional electronics over what came stock, you may wish to contact him about one.

 

Looking at my invoice for that day he put down the following:

Load tested battery - good
Tested Alternator Output - 14.2 volts - good
Checked starter AMP draw - Good
Performed key off battery drain test - 14MA - Good

Is it just that the alternator itself doesnt hold enough amps?

 

Is this a Turbo or not?

 

88 TII non anniversary (or whatever its called)

 

lousy double post

 

You should test it again with a multimeter like icemark said, maybe the alt is dying again ? Good luck