(T) Suspected Alternator Fault

Hope you guys can help, I THINK my alternator's on it's way out...

Car starts fine no matter what the weather's doing, but turn the lights and fans on and something rather curious happens. Turn the wheel, and the lights dim slightly and fans blow less, give it throttle the lights get slightly brighter and the fans blow more.

As I said, I think it's the alternator...am I right?

check charging

i know its off the topic have you got any more pics of the stilo

My one?

If so, not yet, I'm waiting for A)The weather to get better, B) Get the lowering springs and strut braces fitted and calipers painted.

Good point T, I'll get the multimeter out.

Let us know how you get on.
Mine's been doing this ever since I got it, which is over a year ago.
Thought it was strange, but I've got so many other things to put right I haven't really thought about it too much.

ChrisMClark, did you ever get this sorted?

My cars got the same problems, with the added bonus of the lights dimming whenever the bass comes in on my stereo. It's getting to the point where the lights dim down significatly, where before it was a little bit of a flicker.

I'm thinking - alternator am i right?
Could be but don't forget that an important part of the charging circuit working properly is a good earth and a bad earth is a famous Italian car fault. Many people have bought alternators only to realise it was the earth cable connection. Expensive mistake.

Check the voltage across the battery with heavy electrical load on and see if it's easily holding up the voltage

Then check voltage from battery earth to an actual good earth point on the engine. The voltage of course should be as near to zero as possible. Any significant voltage means your alternator has a bad reference for zero ie earth and may be perfectly ok once a decent earth connection is made. Bad earths tend to show up under cold engine conditions and heavy charging after starting

i have had my stilo for 3 1/2 years and it has done this, the change is ever so slight and is done on tick over. It has had no battery problems at all, and is still on original battery.

Mine is also a 1.2 so I would assume that this is just a quirk of this variant and is not something im worried about as my last car did it, even with a new alternator, and an F reg rover always did it that the family had years ago

I wouldnt be worried and start looking for problems that aint there

Mine's actually a 1.6 so it isn't peculiar to the 1.2

You are right though - still never had a problem. The lights are still dimming etc, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

In fact, mine's the original battery too (51 plate 56500 miles) and is probably the only thing on the car I haven't repaired/replaced

every car does this, unless you got a super powerful battery!!

the lights dimming when the stereo on is normal if on loud and you got subs, as your drawing more current, once on the move the wheels are generating more current to the alternater, hence no dimming, if idleing the engine is under no load, smae when you turn the fan on, the engine speed changes coz its gota copensate for the extra power your using, its all normal