When the battery charge gets too low the engine will shut down, and you will be stranded. The battery charge will go down as you drive since all the on-board electronic controllers and accessories are now solely powered by the battery. Yes, you can drive your Vue with a bad alternator, but only for a short distance. If you see numbers between 13.5 volts and 14.8 volts with no major fluctuations when you turn on the accessories in the vehicle, the alternator is functioning properly. If the voltage drops below 12 volts with the engine running and the accessories turned on, it means the current supply from the alternator is completely cut off and all the electronics are solely powered by the battery.If it drops and remain below 13.5 volts, it indicates a problem with the current supply from the alternator. The voltage should remain around 14 volts.Switch on the accessories in your Vue, for example, headlights, AC fan at full speed, and interior lights.The voltage should be between 13.5 and 14.8 volts with the engine running.Connect the black cable of the multimeter to negative terminal of the battery, and the red cable to the positive terminal.The easiest method to check the alternator is by measuring the voltage at the battery terminals when the engine is running. Before replacing the alternator, you must rule out other causes that may stop or degrade flow of current from the alternator, for example: bad electrical connection or damaged wire. a state of the art 3.5 is apples and oranges, but you get my point.Alternators can fail at any time, but generally they last over 100,000 miles. When I take off spark plugs I printed out one of those charts of the net that shows what different colors on spark plugs mean. It is so darned easy to do anything on that vehicle. It is far from a great peformance vehicle, but when you want to perform maintenance or troubleshoot it, almost anyone armed with a how-to can tackle lots of things. Alas, I think this is how most of the newer stuff is. The only thing I dislike about the VUE is how darned hard it is to get in there and do something like check out the spark plugs. Fuel, ignition, or plugs needing replacement earlier than recommended because of factors not figured into the equation in real world operating conditions? Just my 2-cents. As difficult as it seems, it may be time (whether or not its due) to remove the spark plugs and go the old school way - examining the spark plugs again to discern the same factors that affected these plugs in the past is affecting them again. Nowadays with emissions control plumbing leaving less access and ignition system sophistication making it more difficult to remove plugs readily, car owners have to resort to remedies like fuel additives. Every spark plug company published a color chart for reference purposes to compare plugs against to determine if gas, incorrect plug range, or ignition system problems existed. Sometimes we tend to overlook the obvious in the past whenever there were starting problems (minus the emissions paraphernalia) not related to the battery/starter system but ignition or fuel related, the spark plugs were removed for examination as they tell what condition the combustion chambers were at the time of engine problems.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |