I have a 90 model. While driving in the rain a few weeks ago with lights,wipers,radio and deforst. I lost tach ,speedo and radio but I was close to home made it . Never had a problem again till this week lost power again went by advance auto.They said alternator was fine but had a bad battery. I put new battery and cable ends on. Coming to work today in the rain again lost power to the point car would not run over 20 mph or so. stop turned it off bam dead battery. Battery shows 0 on charger. Any ideas

 

Take it back to Advance and tell them you just bought the battery and they told you your alternator was fine. They need to re-test the alternator. Possibly the test was screwed up (or they sold you a bad battery)

 

Batteries and Alternators are evil sisters.

They are dependant on eachother for survival and you depend upon them to get you where you need to go.

If a battery or alternator fails, then it will not be too long before the other one will go.

Reason for this is that if your battery dies, your car is now running strictly off the alternator for EVERYTHING and this has created havoc with in your charging sytem. This will create excess draw on the alternator to provide power to everything all the time.

If your alternator dies, your battery will be powering everything for a very short period of time.

Hope this helps.

 

Sadly there is no way to predict when and where an Alternator will die.

They are one of those things that could test well, then next thing you know it is done.

The OP can get an alternator rebuild kit from EBAY. It is usually the voltage regulators that go in Alternators. Or the OP can go to a self serve wrecking yard, pull an alternator and have it tested for free at a local autoparts store.

The pre owned alternators cost maybe $10.00 to $30.00 depending on where you get them and will have a core charge for your old one.

Something to consider is that when "new" alternators are build and tested they become "used" as they have already spun once.

Most wreckers will offer you a 90day return/exchange policy on most parts including alternators.

Hope this helps.

 

“While driving in the rain a few weeks ago with lights,wipers,radio and deforst. I lost tach ,speedo and radio but I was close to home made it”

In a 90 Honda these are not signs of a bad battery but more of an alternator or bad connection.

“Battery shows 0 on charger”
That sounds like a bad battery cable if you connected the leads to the battery cable and not the battery post(you removed the battery cables).

 

Well i now have a new Battery and ALternator, battery was a warranty exchange the alternator was $89 rebuilded. I did not have the time to put it on so local garage charger $60 to install took about 1 hour for them.Shows 14.4 volts with light and fan running.

 

You also mentioned this happened in the rain both times.

Next time it rains, see if the result is the same. I suspect that maybe you may have a water leak somewhere or there is a short created when water is introduced into the equation.

Or, take the car to a manual car wash and try to simulate the rain with a pressure washer as the car is running. IE, Spray water under the car, spray it in the grill, overtop of the car. You may be able to recreate the problem in a controlled enviornment.

 

not totally true..............I have had many cars come in with bad batteries and alternator still lasts for a very long time .( years ) ........

 

Every single car I have had the battery fail the alternator has gone with in a few weeks after.

 

If the alternator was near the end the battery failing could finish it off but not every single time. I have only had alternators fail on the American cars I have owned. Batteries have usually given me warning it was time to replace and after five years I now just replace them.