First off, I love how the misspelled it, nice right? Way to go whoever made the cluster.


Now, onto the issue. I should let you know ahead of time that the car's alternator has a modification that I hooked up the sensor wire and now it actually senses what voltage the car has, and gives me a steady 14 (or so) instead of hanging around 13. Before this got done, maybe once or twice in the time I've had it, the dinger would go off like I had a check gages light, but no light (No gauge was having ANY issue). Lately it seems, since this voltage mod, that it happens more often, and the light even comes and stays on for a brief few seconds. It seems to do it most while on highway, and when it hits around 14.5. Turning on lights will make it go away, anything electrical basically. The question I have is, how is this voltage, if it is the cause, making the dinger and light go off when it's not even NEAR the red mark on the voltage gauge on the cluster? What can I do to diagnose this, and what other recommendations are there? To throw you off even more, when the car starts in the very cold mornings at times it has OVER 14.5 and doesn't set off anything...just to add some confusion to this mess.

What year car do you have? The 14.5 is going toward the high side for the 90's. Can you get a meter on it, across the battery, and see what reading you get with that? Did you check to see if a code has been set?

It's possible that the regulator in the alternator is starting to go. A '93 SSE had a problem where it would intermittently set off various dash warnings. Checking the voltage at the battery showed quite a bit of fluctuation.

Edit - OK, I see your signature now...it just said "Image" originally.

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*Gone, but not forgotten* - Black 2000 SSEi, HIR Headlights, Angel Eyes fogs, 3rd brake light overlay, hi-flo cat, 180 degree thermostat, HS 1.9 rockers, LSx yellow springs, Intense FWI, PCM, shift kit, push rods, and 3.4 Pulley. ZZP Power Log.

Yeah it's a 95, I'll do what you said tonight or tomorrow and read the voltage and get back to you

14.8 Steady at the battery, during idle. I'm thinking that's a bit on the danger high side, am I right? Funny that while the battery gets 14.8 the car reads 14 on both the dash and the Pioneer deck's internal voltage readout.

Edit: Maybe some of you 00+ guys can get out to your cars, do me a favor, and give me a read of your voltage at the battery. Why you ask? 2000+ adds the sensor to the alternator far as I know, and that's what we modified my car to now have.

For a consistent voltage, that would be on the high side. It should start to drop as the battery charges. High charging voltage can cause internal heating of the battery. Check the voltage at a source within the fuse box, and see if reads the same as at the battery. If it is lower, you may have some corrosion/cabling issues. I'll try to get to reading the voltage on mine, but it might be a day or two, as I fried my meter.

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*Gone, but not forgotten* - Black 2000 SSEi, HIR Headlights, Angel Eyes fogs, 3rd brake light overlay, hi-flo cat, 180 degree thermostat, HS 1.9 rockers, LSx yellow springs, Intense FWI, PCM, shift kit, push rods, and 3.4 Pulley. ZZP Power Log.

Checked the voltage today. At idle, after starting the car after sitting several hours, the voltage was 14.78, with nothing turned on. This is with an 8 year old battery.

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*Gone, but not forgotten* - Black 2000 SSEi, HIR Headlights, Angel Eyes fogs, 3rd brake light overlay, hi-flo cat, 180 degree thermostat, HS 1.9 rockers, LSx yellow springs, Intense FWI, PCM, shift kit, push rods, and 3.4 Pulley. ZZP Power Log.

And this was being checked at the battery correct, in other words reading direct from battery terminals?

I plan to bring my car in this week in preparation for NEBF, I am going to get the positive screw replaced as I've already done the negative side a while back, thing was I bought a 2-pack and stupidly didn't realize the positive side was a much longer screw, it's kinda old (probably original) and won't hurt to replace. Battery is an Optima Red-Top. Alternator is also pretty much new, AutoLite.

Actually, no...for a couple of reasons. The first...I was too lazy to pull out the back seat. Secondly, where I measure, at the under hood fuse block's connection, would coincide better in cable lengths and location wise with the location of your battery. I expected mine to read a bit on the high side, due to the age of the battery.

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*Gone, but not forgotten* - Black 2000 SSEi, HIR Headlights, Angel Eyes fogs, 3rd brake light overlay, hi-flo cat, 180 degree thermostat, HS 1.9 rockers, LSx yellow springs, Intense FWI, PCM, shift kit, push rods, and 3.4 Pulley. ZZP Power Log.

So today I had the little tid-bits of work done to the car before NEBF (Alignment, new battery screw for positive side since the negative was already new, re-check and fill tires with the nitrogen that is free, new brake fluid)

Seems that in car (haven't tested at battery) the car is holding a slightly lower voltage now, more acceptable too, it's hanging around 13.8-14 in car, instead of 14-14.5 . Mechanic said positive side screw was rather old and rusty, I was hard-pressed to get a reading on it that time I got the voltage of 14.8. I'll go out tomorrow and try to test at the battery now.

Hopefully, that will take care of your problem.

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*Gone, but not forgotten* - Black 2000 SSEi, HIR Headlights, Angel Eyes fogs, 3rd brake light overlay, hi-flo cat, 180 degree thermostat, HS 1.9 rockers, LSx yellow springs, Intense FWI, PCM, shift kit, push rods, and 3.4 Pulley. ZZP Power Log.

Update: Well, magically the problem almost never happens now. I only had it happen once while on the drag track on a very very hot day sitting there, and it happened really quick once and has not since then. Hopefully it'll continue to not happen, otherwise if it starts cropping up again, I'll be starting to figure out why, but all systems are running on target.

Let's hope that it stays that way.

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*Gone, but not forgotten* - Black 2000 SSEi, HIR Headlights, Angel Eyes fogs, 3rd brake light overlay, hi-flo cat, 180 degree thermostat, HS 1.9 rockers, LSx yellow springs, Intense FWI, PCM, shift kit, push rods, and 3.4 Pulley. ZZP Power Log.