General Alternator Fail Warning

[hobbo]

My 2002 1.6 Active Stilo seems to have a very strange problem. If you turn the ignition on and dont start the car straight away the warning lights go out on the dash, but when you start the engine the red battery light goes out but the dashboard warning beeps with Alternator fail. It has a new alternator fitted and I have cleaned the D4 Connector with electrial contact cleaner.

My garage have checked the output of the Alternator and say its working fine. If I depress the clutch and start the car straight away the dash computer says Check Ok. The car had a new battery before I bought in Feb of this year. The car drives fine and all the electrics work, Power steering and City function work fine.

Its been on the Fiat system and the check on the instrument cluster came back with no faults showing

 

[Deckchair5]

I'd rig up a multimeter to the cigar lighter/power outlet socket so you can see what's happening to the voltage immediately after start up
Or if you use FiatEcuScan then you can monitor battery voltage directly

Sounds like a bad earth - battery to engine