Hi all,

Question.. would running the car on a dead battery after jump starting damage the alternator in any way? Someone told me that since the alternator is trying to recharge a battery that is not accepting any charge, it would damage the alternator...

Please let me know if this is wrong....

Cheers...

Ron

 

theres not too many people that will chime in here, mostly because its possible either way. I WOULD GUESS that it can hurt the alternators diodes and not be able to rectify your voltage. you may also damage the diode bridge from the alternator not baing able to determine how much charging voltage is needed.
again this is all a guess-i never went to Alternator Academy

 

You are just asking your alternator to not just replace battery wattage, you are asking the alternator to run everything all at once, just a large load on the alternator. Short time, no problem, long time, not advisable.

When in this situation and trying to get home or to a shop, just turn off every electrical load you can.

YD

 

Good points, all. Just one caveat: if the battery failure is a shorted cell, it can cause the alternator to go into 'full charge' mode and if there are too many other loads drawing on it, it will overheat the regulator or diode bridge and 'let the smoke out'. (letting the smoke out of electrical components is bad; when the smoke gets out the electric magic doesn't happen anymore. Laying on of money is the only fix.)

 

Thanks for the replies...