Batteries weak or alternator issue?

Good advice.

 

and for the love of god, plz replace all 4 batteries at the same time. thats if they are the problem.

 

There is no good technical reason to replace all 4 batteries, each battery can be tested and bad ones found and replaced. If the batteries are of the same age and you want to replace them all to prevent NEAR FUTURE problem then by all means do it, but other than that there is no good reason they all need to be replaced. Now a day there are battery testers that can 'tell' how much life is left in a battery.

 

Yeah so when the next one fails in a month or whatever you can pisssss around with it again. Batteries are freaking cheap.

 

just run one new steer tire and one worn out one.

 

EH... Ima buying 4 batteries.

If one is bad, bet the rest of the kiddies are going bad.

 

You can get an idea on the alternator by watching the volts and loading the system by turning on the high beams and the fan on high. Voltmeter is better, but this works in a pinch. The voltage will drop for an instant, then come back up.

 

The volt meters are not directly hooked up to the batteries on most of these new trucks, they are multiplexed gauges.

I wish some of you would stop being so cheap, get the right equipment to test things out or learn how to do it so you can tell the idiot mechanic how to check things.

Get a good volt meter, not the cheap harbor freight ones but a decent $60 plus meter.

Learn how to check voltages and check the voltage at the batteries while the truck is off, while it is on but no engine running, while it is starting and while it is running after five minutes.

You should see a resting voltage of something like 12.3 or better while resting, 12 or better while the truck is on but not running, 11.5 when it is started and 13.5 volts while the truck is running after five minutes.

THOSE are the absolute lowest voltages, not the normal ones.

AND if you are inclined to want to check the starter, you get two pieces of wire that you attack clips to and clip one of them to the BIG post on the starter and the other on something near it that is a ground. then hook up the volt meter to them, polarity doesn't matter with a digital meter just ignore the negative sign if it is backwards. So when you start the truck and the voltage drops to say 11, or less, then you know you have a cabling problem. If you don't see a huge drop, then you have a starter problem.

For batteries, there are several theories out there about them, one is to do a load test another is to have them checked with those new fancy machines that can tell you what plates are bad, and we have the replace one to get by or replace all.

If you an owner, replace all of them, the five hundred spent is a good idea. BUT you could be like me, I just have batteries for house power, and use a Maxwell starting unit to start my trucks.

Now I know I will have someone disputing any or all of this but I went to school for it, a little over 6 years but practiced it for more than 50 years total, including those 6. It is good advice no matter what.

 

No, they are not cheap at least $150 for each. Here in Texas due to the heat batteries last only about 2 years, 3 if you're lucky and they do fail prematurely a lot. Keep the receipts for warranty, to each his own I have no problem testing batteries and replacing just the bad ones my battery tester can tell me how much cranking amp or reserve capacity a battery still has. No need to substitute money for incompetency.

 

what kind of tester