Halp! Electrics progressively dying...

[dug777]

Car's an '89 323 5 door hatch (1.6l carbied).

Over the last three months these have progressively crapped out on me, the final straw was my windscreen wipers the other night.

They worked fine on the way to the gym, didn't work on the way home, and worked fine again a few days later...

:|

Suggestions?

No fuses gone that I could see, but I'll check tomorrow again in daylight.

I don't really care about the radio/clock/interior lights, but the windscreen wipers are kinda useful when it rains...

 

[Zenmervolt]

Standard response for mysterious electrical issues is to check all chassis ground points as well as the battery cables. At this car's age, even in a good climate it's likely that there has been some corrosion on the electrical grounds. Find them all, take them apart, and go at them with a brass brush.

ZV

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Standard response for mysterious electrical issues is to check all chassis ground points as well as the battery cables. At this car's age, even in a good climate it's likely that there has been some corrosion on the electrical grounds. Find them all, take them apart, and go at them with a brass brush.

ZV

Thanks, a colleague mentioned ground points too. Will the manual show them?

 

[sdifox]

Alternator... your alternator is going, replace it stat. Same thing happened to me, first the radio changes channel by itself, then the abs light comes on, then the radio light turns off, wipers go slow. then the car stalls if I have the headlights on...

I had to get a boost and drive , turn off headlight at the red light, get going again, then turn on headlight again. Got it to the mechanic, left the car there overnight and next day he called me to confirm it was the alternator.

PS, I drive a 2002 Protege5, which is basically the same thing as a 323, except better looking, more fun to drive, etc.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: sdifox
Alternator... your alternator is going, replace it stat. Same thing happened to me, first the radio changes channel by itself, then the abs light comes on, then the radio light turns off, wipers go slow. then the car stalls if I have the headlights on...

I had to get a boost and drive , turn off headlight at the red light, get going again, then turn on headlight again. Got it to the mechanic, left the car there overnight and next day he called me to confirm it was the alternator.

PS, I drive a 2002 Protege5, which is basically the same thing as a 323, except better looking, more fun to drive, etc.

There's a hell of a lot of difference between a 2002 Protege and one from over a decade earlier. That's two entire complete-from-the-ground-up model re-designs. None of the same parts are used between the cars. The only thing that's the "same" is that they both occupy the same slot in Mazda's lineup.

Also, this does not sound like an alternator issue. The wipers weren't going slow, they weren't working at all. Also, a bad alternator would not slowly cause the failures over several months. They would occur much faster than that. I agree that for the sake of completeness it's worth doing a load test on the alternator, but I doubt sincerely that it will show a problem.

To Dug: The ground points will not be listed in the owner's manual. A Haynes manual or equivalent might show them. An official Mazda shop manual definitely will.

ZV

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: sdifox
Alternator... your alternator is going, replace it stat. Same thing happened to me, first the radio changes channel by itself, then the abs light comes on, then the radio light turns off, wipers go slow. then the car stalls if I have the headlights on...

I had to get a boost and drive , turn off headlight at the red light, get going again, then turn on headlight again. Got it to the mechanic, left the car there overnight and next day he called me to confirm it was the alternator.

PS, I drive a 2002 Protege5, which is basically the same thing as a 323, except better looking, more fun to drive, etc.

There's a hell of a lot of difference between a 2002 Protege and one from over a decade earlier. That's two entire complete-from-the-ground-up model re-designs. None of the same parts are used between the cars. The only thing that's the "same" is that they both occupy the same slot in Mazda's lineup.

Also, this does not sound like an alternator issue. The wipers weren't going slow, they weren't working at all. Also, a bad alternator would not slowly cause the failures over several months. They would occur much faster than that. I agree that for the sake of completeness it's worth doing a load test on the alternator, but I doubt sincerely that it will show a problem.

To Dug: The ground points will not be listed in the owner's manual. A Haynes manual or equivalent might show them. An official Mazda shop manual definitely will.

ZV

Same as in econobox same, not anything mechanical 🙂 Me don't know much about cars, it was just a similar experience that makes me think alternator.