Hey, I went to a friend of mine and he said that if you want to test your alternator, turn your car on and then take off the negative terminal wire. If the car shut off, your alternator is shot. So I gave it a try and my car just kinda putters like its about to stall, does this mean my alternator is sub-par and about to bite the dust? Thanks

 

It means that you should put the ground back on. When you disconnect the ground, you lose a good ground path. All the other little grounds aren't going to do squat unless you have that hyper grounding thing going or your contacts are really clean. Just go to radio shack and get a $20 voltmeter.

You could also just grab the contacts too to see if it's working well.

 

I am not trying to be an *** or anything, well I guess I am a smart ***, but what was it that you made from home?

 

he probably thought that taking off the neg. off from batterie was a homemade test to see if alternator is bad..

which is true.... but not sure why you call it home made... it should be something everybody knows... just like changing tires..

 

That is a very bad way to test an alternator. Most cars will stall out whether or not the alternator is bad, since as Railgun said, you are disconnecting a main ground.

 

I've been told by many mechanics that by doing that you can burn up your ECU.

 

why not go to the nearest parts store and have them test it. . . . FOR FREE!!!! thats crazy isnt it. . .

paul

 

or you can just get a dmm and test the battery while the car is running, hook up the 2 pointers to the pos and neg of the battery and it should read 14. something.. that means the alternator is in good condition.

 

/\ yes simple and easy