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New alternator and new battery but still have problems. Help

177K views 36 replies 13 participants last post by  jlps 
#1 ·
I guess the problem really started in June. We get back to the van after watching a baseball game and it is dead. Get a friend to come give us a jump and we make it home. Use my battery charger to charge the battery and once charged I test the alternator with the charger and it says it is ok. I replace the battery and all seems fine till about a week ago.

Wife is out cleaning it out and listening to the radio. About 20 mins later she comes in and says the battery is dead. Charge up the battery and test the alternator. Test says it is bad. Spent last weekend changing it out along with both belts. Get it all back together and battery and parking brake light is on. Charge up the battery and lights are still on. Leave alone for a few hours and go to start and it just clicks. Put old battery from June back in (still had it) and it starts right up. Lights eventually go out and I think new battery is bad. Go back out to test a few hours later and lights are back on. Take for a drive and eventually lights go off. Check again a few hours later (around dusk) and this time the lights are back on again. Go out for a drive and it is dark enough out to notice the lights aren't turning off completely but they are just flickering.

Tonight I get a new battery and with fingers crossed install it. Lights are still on. Charge the battery to full but still, lights are on when you start it up. They will go off or fade in and out eventually like before when driving. I noticed around 45mph is when the lights will go out but as soon as you get off the gas or go to brake, the lights start fading and flickering. Along with this I have

1. Checked the belt tightness... can't see how it can get any tighter as the pulley gets out of alignment

2. Checked the ground on the alternator to make sure it was tight.

3. Check the Mass Meter fuse to see if blown

4. Checked with a meter to make sure battery was outputting correct volts.

I'm at a loss here. I am now kind of hopeing Hurricane Earl takes a little more of a turn to the west because I think there will just have to be some "storm" damage. I have googled and searched here and everything says bad battery or alternator. Please help with any ideas. Thanks
 
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#31 ·
You could try checking the alternator output cable and ring, see post #11 in this thread - that cable "should" run from the alternator to an ALT fuse in the engine compartment fuse box, then in-turn to the battery..

But I don't own your ride, hopefully a forum member w/ your vehicle can jump in and confirm.

If that cable / ring are damaged or badly corroded, that could be causing the issue..
 
#34 ·
I don't know where you got the replacement/rebuilt alternator but there have been many posts about the lack of quality of "rebuilt" ones from AutoZone/Advance that were "rebuilt" in Mexico... They usually were repaired and not remanufactured back to original (or better than original) specs....So if a regulator module was replaced...the brushes, bearings, bridge rectifier ass'y were NOT replaced....If they could not find a "problem" with the alternator...they cleaned it up and painted some parts..and sent it to one of these dealers as "rebuilt".... They (the dealers) offer a lifetime warranty on them so they can't get caught with selling "less than" good products..they just replace the "bad one" with another from the same "rebuilder"...
Try finding a used low mileage alternator from a local salvage/bone yard or a TOTALLY new one...
Dave
 
#35 · (Edited)
Check the battery terminals, Kias oem terminals oxidize and even though they look mint, the need to be replaced because of the oxidation you can't see that is inside the crimped on part of the terminal on the copper wire. This has caused a lot of weird electrical problems ( stumbling, stalling, idle problems, flickering lights etc. ). Also, sand down the grounding wires in the engine compartment. Kia had a problem where the factory put grounds on top of painted metal and used anticorrosive screws ( the anticorrosive coating did not conduct electricity ). Effectively the grounding was useless. I replaced all the grounding bolts with stainless steel bolts, and sanded off the body paint under the ground terminal.

The mild corrosion that causes the real 'pain in the but' electrical problems is inside the crimp where the battery terminal actually is crimped on to the wiring harness. You cannot wire brush this. I have had to split the crimp on both the negative and positive terminals on two different Kia Sedona's . I then wire wheel cleaned the inside of the crimp, wire wheel cleaned the bare wire, recrimped the terminal onto the wire, and then finally soldered it to prevent it from corroding again. The oxidative corrosion was a white film that did not look too bad - until I scraped it off to expose shiny metal. I am not kidding when I say that all of my weird electrical problems were solved instantaneously, including the radio / interior light flickering / headlight flickering / brake light / stumbling / stalling under load issues etc. An easier fix would be to cut off the existing battery terminals, expose some fresh shiny wire, and put on two new aftermarket terminals from an auto parts store.

Also, CLEAN THE GROUNDS on the engine firewall. Do not forget the ground off of the battery and the one off of the top of intake manifold. You need to sand or grind the paint off from under the grounding wire terminals on the firewall. I think I did 3 of them , one of the grounds comes directly off of the negative battery terminal. This also made a huge difference in the performance of the Sedona when it was run under load ( like with the ac on, or in drive or reverse ) . Good luck. If the grounding and the crimps do not solve the hesitation / stumbling under load, put another post up and let us know. There are some other things to look at AFTER doing the terminals and grounds.
 
#37 · (Edited)
Large crimper for the battery terminal repair. I used a brazing torch and regular electrical solder. easy peasy + no electrical problems after doing it. The grounds on the body / chassis and on the engine just needed to have the paint sanded off and the bolts replaced with a stainless steel bolts. I remember one right off neg terminal of battery, one on top of engine / intake plenum, and another one ( forget where ). Doing this fixed all the weird electrical problems on two Kia Sedona's ( 2003 and 2004 ), and on a 2008 Kia Sorento.
 
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