Hi, so I had went to autozone and got my Battery starter and alternator tested. Everything passed except the alternator. The alternator said diodes passed. Voltage passed but charging current failed. I was told to get a new alternator. Which I did. So I replaced the alt/ac belt and power steering belt while I was at. Went back to autozone had the new alternator tested while in the car. Same thing diodes and voltage passed but charging current failed. Since I had taken my old alternator off I took it into the shop and had them test it on the machine. And the test came back as passed. So I’m curious what the problem could be that’s making the charging current portion of the test fail. Obviously there’s no point of me keeping the new one if the old one passed. Someone at autozone said it could be ELD( electronic load detector) is this true? Don’t want to start replacing all these parts if it’s not the problem. Any help is useful. Thanks!!

 

Moved your post to a new thread. Reading two potentially separate problems on one thread gets confusing for future members seeking help.

What symptoms is your car showing?

What year accord, trim (EX, LX, EX-L), 4 or 6 cyl engine, auto/manual trans, etc do you own?

I'd recommend charging your battery before doing electrical testing.

If you have a volt meter, you can start doing some basic electrical testing on the battery/alternator system. Test the battery voltage with the key off engine off. It should be >12.6V. Turn on the headlights and the battery voltage should drop slowly. You can measure the battery voltage when the engine is running with all the accessories turned off. Then load the electrical system by turning on the headlights, rear window defrost, radio. Let us know the voltages.

The other test that is simple to do is voltage drop tests on the battery cables and the cable from the large alternator post to the + battery post. For example, you can put your volt meter lead on the - battery post and the other end on the bolt where the - battery cable bolts to the frame/subframe. Start the engine so you have current flowing through the cable. You should read <0.2V. If you read a higher voltage, then move one lead say at the frame to the eyelet instead of the bolt. You want to work backwards to see if a connection or the wire has high resistance and is reducing your current. Hope this makes sense.

 

Here is a good video on voltage drop that does a better job explaining than me.