Guys,

I'm banging my head against a wall with this one, can't seem to find what the problem is. Car is a 1.9 8v JTD Sporting.

Symptoms:

Battery Light will come on and go off when ignition is turned on BUT engine NOT started. Car will idle for over an hour then start to get ASR, Power Steering messages/failures and then everything dies (no power), BUT there is no battery light illuminated and no message to say the alternator has failed/not charging.

Fitted a brand new battery and still same problem/symptoms.

Cars having it's MOT tomorrow so will ask them to check the alternator is giving out power, but would have thought i'd get the warning light/messages if it wasn't.

When I originally bought the car it had an extra wire going from the alternator to the engine fuse box which I assumed was an earth but thinking about it now it might have been a power supply. Would this mean that the alternator isn't being energized, so possible regulator problem. Or could it be the energizer wire is FUBAR ??

Davren

Bad news..

Look at the current thread in GP section.. might shed some light

Good luck for tomorrow

Sounds like it's going to be the alternator. Luckily I have Denso DAN502 (3 month old) 120amp spare one.

Ok, so it failed it's MOT on the following:

Front Offside Coil Spring fractured or broken (having both sides done as a precaution).
Both CV Boots

Also had some advisories for brake pads/discs etc. which I already knew about and have sat at home waiting to go on the car.

Now the alternator was giving out a charge until it was under load i.e. headlights, heated screen etc at which point it was only giving out 11 volts (hence why my fault light never came on as it was charging just not enough). That's now being replaced with a Denso DAN502 120amp unit which I had spare (just in case) and the other items are being fitted Thursday.

So by Friday it will have a full MOT and be back on the road, so another Stilo saved from car heaven.

When I bought an alternator I got a Denso DAN501... which is a 105Ah doodah.

It's a strange one, since pre-Nov 2002 models with AC needed a (DAN502) 120Ah and the same earlier model without AC used the (DAN501) 105Ah alternator.... whereas my old beast (2004 model with AC) is listed as a 105Ah, in ePer and in the Denso catalogue.

All of Stilos type (192 A1.000) produced between Nov 2002 and May 2005 apparently only need a 105Ah. I went with that (since it's the "recommended" for my car)... and it hasn't given me any aggro' at all (although my AC condenser is knacked and I never use it).

I plan to fix it (AC) once I get my MOT sorted... so it'll be interesting to see how the 105Ah alternator holds up.


Ralf S.