Battery or Alternator problems?

[Tadem]

Need an advise.
On my road trip I had to help a friend and jump start his car. After getting his car started I tried to start mine but failed.
So we attached jumper cable again and got my car up and running.

this morning, week after our 1400 miles trip, car started fine but I decided to "play" with AHC and manually put car in Netrual while. Right when I hit that switch my entire dash started flashing. everything AC, lights, music, rear monitors were cutting in and out.

so I started shutting things down: music, TVs, headlights and pulled out from garage. a minute later everything went back to normal.
after my short trip (I kept car running on parking lot for 30 minutes) car started without any issues.

I got back home and put measured voltage on battery with car off: 12.6. after running headlights for 2 minutes it dropped to 12.4.
When car runs I see voltage 13.3-13.6V, I am curious if this is not to low and alternator on its way out.
Also the fact that when AHC pump kicked in it electric system got overloaded and could not run everything.

So question I have what is normal alternator voltage at the battery terminals when car idling? I do see slight increase when I rev the engine. it goes up to 13.6

I did replaced battery, it was already 8 years old based on sticker.

 

[TeCKis300]

Can you clarify if you replaced the battery before or after jumping the other car? When you say it failed to start after jumping your buddy, was no power? Low cranking power? Power then went dead when hitting the start button?

Based on your intermittent symptoms, I suspect the connection at the battery terminals. Make sure there is no corrosion and the connection is tight. Also check the ground cable coming off the battery and where it terminates near the fender.

 

[Tadem]

Can you clarify if you replaced the battery before or after jumping the other car? When you say it failed to start after jumping your buddy, was no power? Low cranking power? Power then went dead when hitting the start button?

Based on your intermittent symptoms, I suspect the connection at the battery terminals. Make sure there is no corrosion and the connection is tight. Also check the ground cable coming off the battery and where it terminates near the fender.

It was low cranking power. Now that you mentioned I do remember checking how secure the terminals were and I heard electric clicking noise like from the relay.

All issues happen before I replaced battery. Cleaned terminals as well. Will have to check the ground cable termination.

thanks for responding so quick.

 

[RET2]

Batteries are funny, some just die a slow death others just check out. That being said sometimes depending on vehicle a weakening battery will manifest in odd random functions of seemingly unrelated features such as radio memory loss or lighting issues.

 

[Sandroad]

So one more clarification. If all the issues happened before you replaced the battery, did that fix it? The voltages you reported sounded ok.

 

[Tadem]

So one more clarification. If all the issues happened before you replaced the battery, did that fix it? The voltages you reported sounded ok.

All of this happen before I replaced battery. New battery was installed only few hours ago. Everything seems to be working as it should so far.
I just hope it’s not an alternator. That’s why I wasn’t sure if my alternator voltage wasn’t to low