Alright I thought I'd come here and check to see what you guys think.
Yesterday Wife left for work around 7:00 AM. She got there at 7:30, person who was supposed to open the store over slept and didn't get there until 8:00, so basically from 7:30 to 8:00 she sat there with the radio on, and I think the head lights were on but I can't say for certain. Anyways, Radio turned itself off about 7:45 7:50, and at that time power locks wouldn't even work, so the battery was just TOASTED.
So I told her Id stop up and jump it atleast, it took about 20 minutes to jump I think a lot of that though was connectivity related. Anyways by the time it got charge it was fine. I got it home, turned it off and turned it back on it fired right up, which doesn't say a whole lot but you get the idea.
We went out later that night to the Grocery Store, and I noticed the car was idling REALLY badly, rather than having take our child to the Grocery store and possibly have it die there, I told her to goto AutoZone and lets have it tested.
We went to Autozone, shut off the car, they came out and tested the Battery, Battery test came back Bad.. but it was going into the 13 Volt range while being tested so... That being said we took it back home and then took my car back out. I let it sit all night, and all day, tried to start it, ZERO problems, So I thought well maybe its the cold. So I rolled it out to the driveway and let it sit for like 3 hours, went outside, in 16 Degree Weather, started right up.
I took it around the block, The Idle started acting funny again, so I thought why not give this thing a real load, and see how it does, I turned on the front defog, the rear defog, the A/C AND the High BEam headlights, the idle compensated itself and turned itself up to 1k on the RPM, and it held it fine, I pulled it back in the garage turned it on and off a couple of times no problem.
So my question is, could this still be a battery because it sounds like when the accessories are ran for any longer than like 15 mins, the car dies, but do you think the Alternator is impacted at all?
If so how hard is the Alternator to replace, THe Battery is easy, Alternators are a little more work.
Oh by the way 2002 Protege with 30k miles on it
Yesterday Wife left for work around 7:00 AM. She got there at 7:30, person who was supposed to open the store over slept and didn't get there until 8:00, so basically from 7:30 to 8:00 she sat there with the radio on, and I think the head lights were on but I can't say for certain. Anyways, Radio turned itself off about 7:45 7:50, and at that time power locks wouldn't even work, so the battery was just TOASTED.
So I told her Id stop up and jump it atleast, it took about 20 minutes to jump I think a lot of that though was connectivity related. Anyways by the time it got charge it was fine. I got it home, turned it off and turned it back on it fired right up, which doesn't say a whole lot but you get the idea.
We went out later that night to the Grocery Store, and I noticed the car was idling REALLY badly, rather than having take our child to the Grocery store and possibly have it die there, I told her to goto AutoZone and lets have it tested.
We went to Autozone, shut off the car, they came out and tested the Battery, Battery test came back Bad.. but it was going into the 13 Volt range while being tested so... That being said we took it back home and then took my car back out. I let it sit all night, and all day, tried to start it, ZERO problems, So I thought well maybe its the cold. So I rolled it out to the driveway and let it sit for like 3 hours, went outside, in 16 Degree Weather, started right up.
I took it around the block, The Idle started acting funny again, so I thought why not give this thing a real load, and see how it does, I turned on the front defog, the rear defog, the A/C AND the High BEam headlights, the idle compensated itself and turned itself up to 1k on the RPM, and it held it fine, I pulled it back in the garage turned it on and off a couple of times no problem.
So my question is, could this still be a battery because it sounds like when the accessories are ran for any longer than like 15 mins, the car dies, but do you think the Alternator is impacted at all?
If so how hard is the Alternator to replace, THe Battery is easy, Alternators are a little more work.
Oh by the way 2002 Protege with 30k miles on it