[the-1-2-b]

Hi, need a little help!! my partners astra G has intermitantly started to show the battery light & loseing power steering! This happend to me about two years ago when i owned the car so i took it to the local garage who found the alternater to be fualty so it was changed and all was fine.
Now the same issue is starting again so my first thought was the alternator so i have been out with the volt meter & tested for the telltail sign of a voltage drop when engine is running and headlights turned on but no significant drop only about 0.1v so i removed the + & repeated the test with battery out of the equation but still no real drop in voltage (again only 0.1v) altough without the battery conected the headlights did flicker a bit.
The only thing is that the fault is intermitant so it could be considered an unfair test as the fault was not presant while i was testing!
Any help please

 

[LADmachining]

If the alternator isn't already toast, then it will be after running the engine with the battery disconnected.

Voltage drop tests will only tell you if a particular cable is defective. You only needed to check the alternator output voltage by putting the meter across the terminals of the battery. Less than 13.5V with the engine running and the alternator is defective.

There can be problems sometimes where the battery light comes on (and this signal from the alternator also controls the PAS), but the battery can still be charged properly.

 

[the-1-2-b]

The voltage is at around 14v so if its not looking like the alternator what else can i check myself before paying a mechanic loads of cash i dont have?

 

[jiraffe]

i would have gone alternator tbh

 

[LADmachining]

i would have gone alternator tbh

Exactly.

I refer the OP to the last paragraph of my previous post.

"Snet from my phone so there could be lots of tyops"

 

[Cabrio_Jon]

Regulator on alternator on its way out buy one it will be bosch around 25£ unscrew and pull off old one and plug in new one however if the alternator was new just take it back


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[the-1-2-b]

thanks for the replys i will get a alternator sorted out