Alternator charging

[nine-fiver]

Anyone able to tell me what their alternators charge at? Lights on and lights off?

[aerojon]

charging voltage should be 14.4v+,with all possible loads turned off..

[Alan]

With a fully charged battery.
Start engine and leave ticking over for 1 minute  13.45V 
Blip throttle a couple of times then back to tickover   13.62 dropping within 20 seconds to 13.45V
Switch lights on ( engine still on tickover )  13.45 V
A while ago when I was helping my nephew with battery problems on his Zafira, Zafira had a flat battery mine was at about 75% charged and both gave just over 13.6V on tickover.

[nine-fiver]

Thanks Alan. Nice work and appreciated. Mine is charging at 13.3 when lights are off and 12.2 with them on, and not with the seat heaters on. Fog lamps, heaters, headlights, wipers and aircon all cranking in heavy rain, and the poor thing just ran out of puff. No startee.
Fresh alt going on next weekend. Not my favourite job, but that's my lot!

[sgould]

Have you checked all the earthing points?  A bit of rust on the link from the engine to the body will drop voltage. 

The way alternators are wound would make it difficult to produce low volts.  I would suspect the Regulator or something else.  I can't remember, but do the alternators have a clutch in the pulley?

[Audax]

Doesn't the 9-3 have a modern alternator with more magic in it so that it only charges at certain rates and times to lower alternator load on the engine? I'm too far away from a copy of WIS to check this.

[sgould]

It's got a lot of complicated stuff in there!!

[Audax]

Told you 

[nine-fiver]

So, next question then...can you put a 9-3 alternator on a 9-5?

[Audax]

So, next question then...can you put a 9-3 alternator on a 9-5?

Err, what? and no.

[nine-fiver]

Just wondering. Nice to know you can't. Parts supply of the younger model 9-5s being wrecked is starting to dry up a little down here. Putting 10 year old replacement bits on an 8 year old car is starting to be a problem.

[Audax]

Not sure what the situation is for you but the list price of a Bosch or Denso (for either 9-3 or 9-5) alternator in the UK is around £200 so when mine got noisy I just fitted a complete brand new part, second hand ones get thrown away by the bucket load for the 9-5 as they are pretty reliable, they just can get noisy after 150k which is longer than the lifespan of most 9-5's.

[nine-fiver]

$700 plus for a new alternator in Melbourne. Too much. But always happy to fit a decent SH unit. Paid $200 for a fresh looking unit that will go on shortly. Got the original one reco-ed and it hasn't worked out all that well after 18 months. Hoping this one will put out over 13.5 volts charging when the lights are on. Lots of 9-5s being wrecked professionally lately, which is good, but most cars are over 10 now that hit the shelves. We had a real splurge on 9-5 sales back in '02 -04 but little after that. Now these cars are being taken off the road through insurance write-offs, with most cars having very little wrong with them. Anything electrical, it is done for. The car does a Dice unit, and the insurance says crush it, if it was related to water damage, say from a sunroof issue.

[Audax]

I'm confused, is this for your 9-5 or 9-3? It's in the 9-3 forum is all. Anyhow, if they are the prices in Australia maybe it's time to set up a company to import parts!

[nine-fiver]

Well spotted. My 9-5 actually had the charging issue but I was interested to see if a 9-3 younger model alt could end up fitting a 9-5. Clearly not.
Being the humble 'educator' that I am, I am not about to go into business importing parts. I'll gladly leave that to the professionals, and gladly take their sage advice.
Mind you, I managed to change the offending alternator today in under 2 hours.