What are signs of a bad or dead alternator?

Answer 1

any vehicle with a 12 volt system should charge at 14 volts. so when the car is running, with simple volt meter (that you can get at wal-mart) put the black wire on the ground side of the battery and the red wire on the positive side. the meter should be set at 20 volts dc current. with the car off, the battery should read 12.66-12.70. that is the voltage of a fully charged battery. when you start the car the voltage should climb to 13.9-14.5 volts. Chrysler vehicles tend to have a lower voltage set than other domestics, but if the voltage is lower than 13.8, you have a problem. a dead battery will cause the voltage to be lower until the alternator can bring the battery to full capacity. almost all vehicles have a battery light. this light is controlled by only the alternator. and has nothing to do with the battery in most cases. if the light comes on, then your alternator probably quit working. there are a lot of other variables, but this is just a quick check, and many pages could be written about this subject. never take your battery cable off while the vehicle is running. the voltage regulator could sense that your battery is stone dead and cause a voltage spike in excess of 60 volts. this could smoke anything in your electrical system. many people do it, but 1 out of 10 it could happen. is it worth the risk??