my car is beginning to idle a little odd and i now notice that all lights on the car go brite then dim almost in sync with the idle and its even more noticeable when you apply the brake pedal and hold it when it idles . i thought mabye the gap on my plugs was to big so i changed the gaps on the sparkplugs and still no difference. i have only 94000k on my 2000 sunfire gt i recently fried the alternator and battery and had them replaced but it almost sounds like the alternator has akind of rattle coming from it when the car is running at least it sounds like its the alternator. i know the mechanic that fixed my alt. didnt replace it with the one i asked for mabye its a @!#$ty rebuild mabye it aint the alternator ? does anyone have any ideas ?
Check the voltages on the battery. With the car off you should have 12 volts give or take. When the car is running you should have 14 volts or higher.
the battery is brand new mabye amonth old what could be wrong with it?
Hi Shawn
if you do as Jonathan posted-he is right on and is trying to establish where the fault lies.
If you check the battery voltages and post the results people will be able to suggest the next step.
There are lots of things that can go wrong with a battery-- not that there should be anything wrong with yours
See what readings you get-make sure the battery connections are clean and tight, the voltage must be varying to have your lights vary in brightness
Good Luck
Alont
You been jump starting people with the car running? If so.. you might have fried the rectifier in the alternator. Easy fix, but not cheap.
But yeah... hard to say for sure until you measure the voltage output when the car is running.
you running a big stereo or anything?
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sorry for the anal question sometimes it helps me understand better if people tell me why to do something for whatever reason .im still learning about cars and how @!#$ works so im not tryin to argue jonathan just trying to get a better understanding of why i should check the "battery" and so on. thankx for the explanation. i was running a big stereo but i took it out recently because i needed the trunk space so i currently have it in my closet at the moment. i have never boosted anyone with my car and like i said i cooked the alternater so it should be new or a rebuilt unless i damaged something else when my alternater fried cuase it was putting out way to many volts when it went so it over charged my battery and cooked it in fact it was swollen and looked like it was going to blow up. could the over charging alternater damage other electrical components? anyways ill check out the volts on the battery and let ya know
