[MetroMPG]

I've had my winter beater Metro on the road for less than a week, and it's already sprouted a new exhaust leak and developed a charging problem! Awesome!

Let's talk about the charging problem - I've never seen one like this before.

Symptoms:

- Sometimes when I start the engine, the alternator is not charging. But sometimes it is (but much more likely not).

- On the more rare occasions it is working, if I do an engine-off coast, it may not resume charging the next time the engine is started. Alternator run time doesn't seem to change the odds that it will continue working on the next start-up.

The bizarre thing:

There's NO battery warning light showing on the dash when the alt is off but the engine is running. But it does show when the engine is off and the key is in the run position.

Because of that lack of warning, I first discovered the problem when the car radio blinked off (while driving - 100 km round trip). And when I next went to use the starter... nada. Battery voltage showed 7v! Battricide! Odd how the engine seemed to run well enough at that voltage, but the radio said "nuh-uh!"


I haven't done any kind of testing yet.

I'll check battery connections - but I don't think that would explain the lack of idiot light. Also, the engine fires right up when I turn the key (assuming 12+v SOC).

I will probably just swap the alternator with a known good one, but I'm not confident that's the problem. I've seen more than a few alternator failures in my life, but have never heard of an intermittent failure or a failure with NO idiot light warning.