Thread: Defender charge rate

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

Well the car has had a day at the dealers and has emerged with a new alternator. On the drive home the volts looked better. It was a bit hard to say though as the battery was toasty charged.

I have hooked the two up and the traxide again and I've got the inverter giving the system some curry as we speak. I have some errands to do tomorrow so we'll see how it goes.

Hmmm... I'm not too sure it's fixed It too half an hour of driving to get the main up to 12.7 (where the traxide joined the two batteries) and then it dropped back to 12.4/12.5. I don't think this is enough

check all the earths first, then start probing the harness from the alternator back with the engine running.. eventually your going to find a high resistance joint in there somewhere and I'll bet that its somewhere after the point where the alternator charge wire connects to the startermotors hot terminal...

Also check the calibration of your meter, Ive seen a couple of batteries go up in smoke cause the regulators were set for 18v due to someones multimeter was reading lower than actual volts.

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

check all the earths first, then start probing the harness from the alternator back with the engine running.. eventually your going to find a high resistance joint in there somewhere and I'll bet that its somewhere after the point where the alternator charge wire connects to the startermotors hot terminal...

Also check the calibration of your meter, Ive seen a couple of batteries go up in smoke cause the regulators were set for 18v due to someones multimeter was reading lower than actual volts.

Sounds like good advice. I'll have a bit of a poke around. If its not obvious I'll give it to the dealer (warranty) next week.

Hi Captain, as Dave posted, I would start with getting the meter checked and then start readings all over again because the SC40 and SC80 are both set to cut-in at 13.25 volts, not 12.7 and even if the voltage is actually higher, once the batteries are connected, unless there is a problem with the auxiliary battery where it is very flat or faulty, the voltage should not drop back more than about .1 of a volt after having the motor running for 2 and 1/2 hours.

Cheers.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Captain, as Dave posted, I would start with getting the meter checked and then start readings all over again because the SC40 and SC80 are both set to cut-in at 13.25 volts, not 12.7 and even if the voltage is actually higher, once the batteries are connected, unless there is a problem with the auxiliary battery where it is very flat or faulty, the voltage should not drop back more than about .1 of a volt after having the motor running for 2 and 1/2 hours.

Cheers.

Hmmm... I'll poke around and see what I find. If I have another meter coming to check mine againse. If I have no luck the dealer has it wednesday.

It's interesting. It would appear the dealer strategy is to replace big parts and hope that fixes it rather than spend time diagnosing properly. LR musn't pay for that

actually (and this will stun you) its usually cheaper to replace the alternator than it is to pay the diagnostics time by the book.

Since most faults (rare now) are the bits in the alternator pulling the alternator and one for oneing it on the odds that it is the alternator are pretty good.

If the alternator goes out for repair and comes back they can reuse it and if its properly fubar then it goes back for OEM replacement for free.

finding an earth fault can take ages the worst time quote Ive seen to replace an alternator is 4 hours and Ive personally spend 2 days trying to track down the earth fault in a rover.

Imagine how much longer it would take a spanner twister to find a fault hes not really sure exists, isnt really interested in and is prejudiced against cause its in a landy. while hes bitchin about it hes not working on jobs that make you good money.

your the workshop manager, what would you have the spanner twisters do first, rembering that if its warrenty work the manufacturer pays for it.

Oh well.

I'll pop the acoustic hood off and read the volts at the alternator.

Ok. With engine off battery and alternator volts the same.

Engine on 14.5 at alt. 13 at battery Looks like a earth problem