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Hi there folks, sorry for the length of this story.
My roommate and I have been given the runaround by his 05 Acura RSX 2.0l. (Honda Civic) It has 89,000 miles on it if that matters to anyone. I have scoured forums all over the internet, found lots of descriptions of very similar problems to ours, but have not found any straightforward solutions.
A few months ago, the idiot light for the charging system came on, and the car died on the side of the road during a short journey around town. We had to jump it twice to cover the few miles back to campus. It died in the middle of an intersection, and I had to wrestle it down a hill in the dark with ZERO power to anything. We left it in a lot on campus overnight, and I assumed it would not start the next day. I went to pull the alternator and battery to run and have it tested at an auto parts store, and found that the car started fine after sitting overnight, there was no idiot light, and the car ran fine for several days. I went to two auto parts stores, and the battery as well as the alternator tested OK in the car as it was then. (I was not shown the voltages from any test, but wish I had been) We drove from Fairfax VA to Bloomsburg PA and back a week later, and still no issues.
The light went off and on sporadically for the past 6 weeks or so, and the only time the car saw on the road over the past couple weeks was when we had to jump it to move from a surface lot before a snowstorm. Unless you let the other car charge the Acura up, it dies soon after being jumped.
The problem has become worse, as I assumed it would. I found that the positive battery cable clamp was rotten and corroded, and suspected this may be causing the issue. Fully tightened, I could wiggle it off the terminal, so I replaced it properly with a good brass clamp, cleaned the negative terminal too, and jump started the car from a mobile jump kit. The car ran fine for 25 minutes around town and on the highway, but the light came on again, we chickened out and raced back to campus. After turning off the car, it would not start again. It cranked very slowly, then not at all.
I know all of this SCREAMS alternator problems, but I’m not sure a new alternator will solve the problem. Does anyone know of an electrical connection near the battery, starter, or alternator that commonly corrodes or causes issues like this? I hear all over the internet that this car is finnicky about aftermarket alternators, and only the genuine Honda part will work well. I’ve solved many an idiot light, but this one has had me stumped for a while. I know the battery is probably no good because it was purchased used, and has sat stone dead for a long time. Even with a bad cell in the battery, the alternator tested good, and I can run the car with the battery disconnected completely. I don’t want him to buy a new battery to find out the alternator is the problem, have the car sit longer, and have the new battery go bad. Is it possible for an alternator to go out sporadically? It seems strange to me.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!
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The battery should be cleaned, fully charged, and load tested. Go to a different place than before to have it tested if you doubt the results you got before. Let them know you would like to observe the test results, not just be told if it is good or bad. Have the alternator re-tested. I say that because you mention you ran the engine without the battery connected. That is bad for modern cars, don’t ever do that. That was an old-school test practice before cars had electronics in them. The battery does more than just provide electricity. It also shorts AC, spikes, and transients to ground. Removing the battery from the circuit allows those spikes and transients to travel around, endangering every semiconductor circuit in your car. Even if your electronics remain intact, in a great many cases removing the battery burns out the diodes in the alternator. Disconnecting the battery also interferes with the alternator voltage regulator’s control voltage input. Without this voltage reference it is possible for the alternator voltage to go way over the top, perhaps even a hundred volts or more, potentially frying everything. NEVER run your engine without a battery connected.
I’m almost sure the battery is at fault, but you need to make sure the alternator hasn’t gotten damaged already from running without the battery. Once that’s done, hopefully the other electronics are still intact.
Thanks for replying,
I know that was bad, but I didn’t disconnect it on purpose. I wouldn’t do that to someone else’s car. After we moved it one afternoon, I popped the hood to look at a few things while the car was still running. I tugged on the battery cables to make sure they were tight, and didn’t expect the positive one was so far gone it would pop off completely in my hand. I put it back on after a second or two. By disconnected completely, I meant the positive terminal was removed completely and the car didn’t so much as stumble. Ground remained connected, but that is still bad I know. I should have stopped the engine before I touched the battery cables to begin with. I checked all the fuse blocks for popped fuses, and didn’t find any. After replacing the battery terminal clamp and going for that short drive until the battery light came back on, the car appeared to be unharmed.
Ill clean the battery and drop it off with some instructions to charge it and record test results. After that Ill have the alternator tested too.
Thanks again.
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