Thread: new alternator and voltage still as low as 12v

Sure thing. Sorry I haven't checked on this lately. Let me know how it turns out for you.

ok tekkie grounded the deck and it runs at a pretty constant 13.8- 14.0v but when you shut her down and try to restart it acts like the battery is dead. weird thing is if you wait it out it will turn over slow as hell and the process starts all over again. again this has new alternator new optima red top and new starter. i am gonna go put on a grounding kit i had a long while ago and the car has a apexi grounding thing. so at

Does it crank over at all when you shut it down and restart? Or does it just click but not crank?

If it's just clicking, sounds like your clutch safety switch could be bad, or your ignition circuit could be bad?

When you test for voltage with the car started, turn all accessories off, including the stereo, and see what the voltage is sitting at on the battery. Then turn all of your accessories on, even A/C, and see if the voltage jumps up from what it was sitting at with accessories off. This would check the charging circuit. If there isn't much of an improvement, then you've still got grounding issues somewhere, or a defective alternator.

ok gonna check the voltage with and without load. when i go to turn it over after stopping it does nothing. no clicks or nothing. the safc will show the voltage as low a 9v when it does this. but then after enough attempts it always seems to start up and the safc will show 14v the minute it starts...

Definitely sounds like you have other issues, then. I would look into troubleshooting the clutch safety switch, or the ignition circuit.

now this is a auto tekkie so does that change the clutch safety circuit. but i am gonna look into the ignition circuit. off to read the fsm. only weird note i have is i got a diehard charger hooked it to the optima for 10 mins and when i disconnected and restarted the charger(kicked the plug) the battery in 30 seconds had dropped .5 volts. weird but it is charging now so lets see maybe it never charged right and my gay car couldnt charge it?

Ah! Auto changes everything.

First of all, you said you're battery is an Optima, right? How are you charging it? You should be trickle charging it if you're using a battery charger. If not, then you could damage the battery.

Secondly, my car would act stupid because of the shift selector. I had to wiggle it every time I wanted to start the car, or it wouldn't crank over. There's a switch on it that was defective.