I got a 2016 Pathfinder and recently it started giving me charging problems.
About 4 weeks ago it was revving in parking but it wouldn't move when in drive and accelerating. In 2 3 minutes the engine died and turned out the battery was dead.
I jumpstarted the car and it worked fine for about a week. After a week I was driving (after being idle for an hr or so) and the same thing happened the engine wouldn't accelerate and eventually died. Battery was dead. It was an old battery so I replaced it. Another week later, idle for about an hr, same thing. Low electric power, battery dead.
Being a new battery it did gather some juice after 10 min and it started. Today (week an a half later) it happened again. The engine started to stall on me and eventually died. However the battery was not dead this time. It restarted fine and was able to pull up to the office (was only a few hundreds yard away). I checked the voltage and I was having 10.5 volts, so I know it wasn't charging. However half an hr later I started it and now it reads 13.6 Volts so it's charging.
All in all it looks like alternator is working intermitently, charging most of the times and failing every week or so for a short period of time.
The battery light comes on, but it's more of a flicker than staying on constantly.
Also every time it happened it was extremely hot.
One of the causes I can think of is the belt slipping, but there's no squealing at all. There's a very faint whistle which I'm not even sure where it comes from.
Can a belt overtighten by itself over time? The car has almost 140K miles and it never had the belt changed.
From what I can tell it's a major pain to replace the alternator (Firestone is asking 1,500 and looking at a video I don't totally blame them), so i'd hate to go through all that trouble and money and find out is something else.
Thanks for all your help.
About 4 weeks ago it was revving in parking but it wouldn't move when in drive and accelerating. In 2 3 minutes the engine died and turned out the battery was dead.
I jumpstarted the car and it worked fine for about a week. After a week I was driving (after being idle for an hr or so) and the same thing happened the engine wouldn't accelerate and eventually died. Battery was dead. It was an old battery so I replaced it. Another week later, idle for about an hr, same thing. Low electric power, battery dead.
Being a new battery it did gather some juice after 10 min and it started. Today (week an a half later) it happened again. The engine started to stall on me and eventually died. However the battery was not dead this time. It restarted fine and was able to pull up to the office (was only a few hundreds yard away). I checked the voltage and I was having 10.5 volts, so I know it wasn't charging. However half an hr later I started it and now it reads 13.6 Volts so it's charging.
All in all it looks like alternator is working intermitently, charging most of the times and failing every week or so for a short period of time.
The battery light comes on, but it's more of a flicker than staying on constantly.
Also every time it happened it was extremely hot.
One of the causes I can think of is the belt slipping, but there's no squealing at all. There's a very faint whistle which I'm not even sure where it comes from.
Can a belt overtighten by itself over time? The car has almost 140K miles and it never had the belt changed.
From what I can tell it's a major pain to replace the alternator (Firestone is asking 1,500 and looking at a video I don't totally blame them), so i'd hate to go through all that trouble and money and find out is something else.
Thanks for all your help.
