Could it be the battery?

[o0 XeRO G 0o]

I was a friends house the other nite, and when we got in the car and got ready to leave, something strange happened. I trned on the headlights and stereo at the same time after i turned on the car, and all of a sudden, the headlights started dimming horribly and so did the neons inside. I'm not sure why it did this, so i turn the headlights off then on again and they kep dimming. Turn off the car and restarted it and everthing was fine? Whats the problem? Could it be the attery? Help?

[HeadAche]

I had that happen to me a while ago, and it was the alternator in my car.. cost about $260 to get a new one.. I would take it to like a auto parts store and see if they could test the battery and see if thats the problem, if its not then check the alternator..

[Nick VR4]

IMHO
Start car first then turn on lights
Turning key and putting headlights on etc at the same time
Maybe confussing the system/ alternotor ?

[JiP]

If theres an autozone near you they test your battery and can alsotest your alternator output current. If your alt is outputing crap then thats the prob =] Could just be that you were draining too mch from the battery having amp and headlights on 2 very big power suckers, and now you try to pull another 60amps to crank the car...Start the car...then turn ur stuff on

[NRG]

It shouldn't be the battery....Because once your car is cranked and running, its not running off the battery anymore...

[JiP]

O I didnt read properly DOPE! I thought you couldnt get it to start. I'd say its your alternator.

[rfpa1]

Suggestion:

make sure that you take the alternator out of the car and take it to an alternator repair place. They will test it with the bench tools, not the unit that you plug to the battery. Mine passed that test, but still had some problems so I pulled it and toke it to an Alternator repair place and they found that the rectifier and the front bearings were bad.

[o0 XeRO G 0o]

thanks guys. i finally dug te galant out today, and i'll have to wait to see if it does it again. nest time it does, i'll have to take to autozone like u guys said. but the misunderstanding is, and it my fault, i already had the car started for about 15-20 seconds, BEFORE turning on the lights. i doubt this makes a big difference, but i just thought i'd clear that up. thanks again

[95vegasgalant]

:twisted: Ok its not the alternator because if it was the battery light would come on inside the dash second happened to me I cleaned the terminals on the battery made it alot better also if you have amps and a whole lot of lights remember you havea stock alternator you need a higher output alternator but 99.9 clean the terminals and take some load of like lights it will make it better :twisted: your welcome

[o0 XeRO G 0o]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(95vegasgalant)</div><div class='quotemain'>your welcome</div>
thanks!