Hey guys - Since I bought my car back, I've noticed that only on cold starts, that the speedo needle twitches for about 2-3 seconds. Has anyone else experienced this and know what it is? My first thought might be a battery issue? But I really have no idea. Thoughts?

 

Bought your car back?

Never hurts to check the battery voltage to ensure the battery is good. 12.6V+ is a fully charged battery. A few times when the battery was going out upon engine start the trip odmeter would reset to 0. Or the radio would have its volume reset to off.

Also, you want to be sure the alternator/voltage regulator are working properly. Just got through dealing with an alternator/voltage regulator on one of my other cars. Initially after engine start the battery voltage was nearly 14V indicating the alternator was putting out enough juice to top up the battery after engine start and supply the rest of the car's electrical needs but towards the 30 minute mark the battery voltage started dropping and went down to 12V.

(The car has a battery voltage gauge and I had a data logger connected to the OBD2 port and among other things it was logging battery voltage every 5 seconds.)

The amount of time the voltate was good was decreasing from trip to trip to so I booked the car in and had a factory remanufactured alternator installed. Afterwards the battery voltage was a solid 14V and didn't drop too much even after the battery was topped up.

 

Yep, long story short, I had the opportunity to buy my baby back a month or so ago, so I jumped all over it and shes all mine again!

Interesting... I will connect my scangauge II and start tracking the voltage and see what she says. Thanks for the tip!