So I was just driving home from work this morning, and my tenth ann was acting weird. Whenever I had the blinker on, the radio would cut out. The blinker would blink, and the radio would cut out. About 2 minutes later, I started smelling a very strong burning smell. I continued to smell it until all the warning lights came on as I pulled into my driveway.

I checked out under the hood, but I didn't SEE anything that could have caused this. Any ideas?

I'm ******* HORRIBLE with electrical.

 

And all fuses are still ok?

 

Check any aftermarket wiring first (radio, gauges, etc). I did a **** poor wiring of lighting for one of my gauges and it ended up burning up my headlight switch because the wire shorted.

And if you don't feel comfortable trying your hand with electrical stuff, take it somewhere.

 

I have absolutely no aftermarket wiring on the car. I haven't checked the fuses. I need to sleep. I'll check when I get up.

 

all the warning lights on indicates the alternator has failed

 

^^^yep what he said..something similar happened to me too(all the idiot lights would turn on while im driving). i have the fd alternator on my s4..and what happened was the wire that connects the alt. directly to the battery burned and melted and crap. so that might be a good place to start checking

 

Well, I just started it, drove it across the street to Blockbuster, noticed the stock radio wasn't reading any digital numbers, shut it off, got a movie, started it again, and each time I started it, it seemed to try harder to get started, which is weird, because I just put a brand new red top optima battery in it. I went home, and on the way, the damn thing BARELY made it through my parking lot. By the time I parked it, it sounded like it was barely firing. Sounded very very bad. So I popped the hood.

Heh. Mark was right. I popped the hood, and pulled out a snapped alt belt. But my question is this.

With a snapped belt, would I be able to drive it the 5 miles home, initially, then start it twice after that, and drive it some more?

Is it just a snapped belt, or maybe the whole alt is bad? Again, I'm a total ******* electrical newb, but I've changed many alt belts on FCs before, so it's no problem if it's just the belt. Thanks, yo.

 

well regardless it sounds like you need a new belt...if that doesnt fix your problem then i would look into the alternator

 

ok i have a 86 rx7 i swap the engine about a year ago and ever scinse it dont run rite the idle is always going up and down and it wont pass emissoions what can i do to make it pass, i already changed the fuel injectors and now i dont know what to do

 

With a snapped alternator belt you would be able to drive until the battery got too weak to fire the coils, which is pretty low. With a new Optima red-top I'd say driving 5 mintes and starting the car twice would definitely be possible. What you smelled was probably the belt slipping.

 

I've limped a car with a nonfunctioning alternator like that before. just expect it to kill your battery if it isn't already dead

 

Cool. Good thing those Optima batteries have long warranty. Thanks much.