Battery warning light on

Tiny
ALIIILATORRE
  • MEMBER
  • 2012 CHRYSLER 200
  • 2.4L
  • 4 CYL
  • AUTOMATIC
  • 104,600 MILES
I recently had a battery warning light come up on my car. I changed the alternator. The battery light went off for a whole day and then the next day it came back on. We suspected the alternator was bad, so my boyfriend went a bought a new alternator. Not even 5 minutes of driving and the battery warning light came back on. We decided to change the battery next. So two alternators and one battery later we thought the problem was fixed. After 20 minutes of driving, battery light returned. I had an automotive electrical technician come and check out the vehicle. He tested everything and aside from a fluctuation in the alternator, everything tested fine. Battery, ground wire, wires in ECM. All tested fine. I asked another mechanic what he thought. Apparently my boyfriend got an alternator that had 140amps and not the 120amps that my car is supposed to have. He suggested we get the right alternator and replace the belt. Something tells me this is too simple of a fix considering this will be my third alternator. My car drives perfectly fine and other than the warning light I wouldn’t suspect anything to be wrong. Also no check engine light. Any suggestions? Everyone seems to be stumped and this is really stressing me out.
Friday, March 26th, 2021 AT 11:32 AM

1 Reply

Tiny
KASEKENNY
  • MECHANIC
  • 18,907 POSTS
More then likely this is either a wiring issue or the PCM has an issue on the circuit board. I understand the mechanic tested the ground but we need to know what the PCM is seeing for the charging state.

Meaning we need to hook a scan tool to see what the alternator sense circuit is reading. If we have high resistance in this circuit then the alternator will charge to what it is told to do by the control wire (brown/gray) but due to the high resistance in this red/violet wire the PCM thinks it is not charging the proper amount. So then the PCM will tell the cluster to turn the light on.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-check-wiring

Below is the wiring diagram for us to test the wiring. We need to unhook the wire from both ends and check the resistance and it should be lower then 1 ohm.

Then we can hook it back up and check the voltage at the PCM on this wire.

Let me know if you have questions but if this is an issue we are going to have to run a new wire to correct the issue. However, if the wiring is not the issue, I suspect we are going to have to replace the PCM.

Thanks
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Saturday, March 27th, 2021 AT 4:07 PM

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