well no its safe to say i'm a foolish idiot, i'd only concur with you.. hell, a year ago i managed to get ripped off for 1500 dollars and i got nothing from it.. and it indirectly ruined the rest of my life.. long story, whatever, who cares.. anyway..

ok so I'm going with your advice, I am taking my car to autozone tomorrow and I wanna know what the testing of the alternator reveals.. i swear there is not one trustworthy person anymore.. thanks man, at least I can rely on you..

thanks for everyone that responded, at least I can rely on you guys..

 

Just so you know testing your alternator yourself is rather easy

1) Backyard way, start car then pull off negative battery terminal, if car continues to run alternator is working. If the car stalls out alt not working. (I have used this method many many many times)

2) you need a DMM (multi-meter) check voltage at battery with car off (should be around 12 volts) then start car and check voltage at battery (should be 13.5 - 14.4 volts)

Also there are many trustworthy guys but there are also tons of low rent crappy people as well. It takes time to weed out the bad ones.

 

I would recommend #2 in the post above.

I wouldn't try #1 with current electronic controls on a vehicle. Others will say its ok to try #1, so this me being better safe than sorry.

 

Alright guys so I went with the advice. I went with #2 and had the alternator checked at autozone. The voltage came out just about perfect. 14.2 volts.. The guy at autozone said there was nothing wrong with it, only suggestion was to clean my battery which was fairly corroded.. so that solves that..

so now why in hell's name am I only getting like 22 mpg if I never rev the car past 3k rpm?? everyone I ask keeps saying catalytic converter, I knocked on the thing, I can hear things move in there when I knock.

plus I discovered I gotta do the timing belt thing every 65k miles but the last one was done 92k miles ago.. and yet i go to the same dealership every time for service.. would that have an effect on gas mileage??

 

Timing belts are every 105k miles not 65k miles and no it would not effect MPG.

Research seafoam - you might want to try it.

 

well apparently the honda dealership can't stop lying.. In that case I still have 8k miles to go and thus I shall ignore it safely for now.. still can't figure out why people are so hell bent on lying.. anyway, I'll look into seafoam, I think I read about it once before but I'll look into it further..

In the meantime, I shall continue to not change the catalytic converter or any other significant part of the car without asking y'all fist..

 

What year is your car? Put that information in your signature, so we don't have to look at the first post.

 

ok I put it in my signature, sorry should've done it before.. it's a 2000 honda accord se 4 cyl..

 

This is 100% correct

 

About 90% of our members forget to do that and they are usually the ones who ask the most questions..

WheelBrokerAng