Hi Guys

Last night I was driving and noticed the battery warning light come on. As I was quite some distance from home I acted quickly to turn off any excess load apart from the headlights (radio, heated seats, climate control, nav screen). After a couple of minutes the light went out.

When I was closer to home I turned everything back on and low and behold after a couple of minutes (if that) the light come back on again.

I checked with multimeter at battery terminals today and can see that under usual charging with no load ive got around 14+ volts. When I switch load on inside the car it drops pretty quickly to 12 and then starts to fall further to about 10 and 9V.

This surely must be the alternator right? Has anybody had this? My car is a TDV6 56 reg.

I took some covers off and intake tube etc this morning to have a look and see how difficult it is to change. I have heard stories about having to take front bumper off and rad to get at it. I think I may be able to access if I could remove the radiator fan and some rad pipes but the fan seems to be driven with some sort of oil exchanger component and has what looks to be an encoder on the front end of the rotor. It seems like if I also removed roadwheel and arch cover it may assist with access. Does anybody know any more about this? Or is there a walkthrough guide somewhere of how to change?

Thanks for replies in advance...

With the multimeter over the battery terminals, start the car put on dipped beam and give a little acceleration (1500rpm) the reading should be 14.0V - 14.6V there abouts.

Sounds as though one or more diodes could be faulty.

Jaggy,
If you decide the alternator needs changing then look at the third sticky at the top of the technical section for a list of 'how to's' there are two links for alternator replacement. Not a difficult job on the TDV6. 2008 MY Java Black TDV8 HSE

Classic symptoms of alternator failure,

There is a choice depending on ACE or not. Same units but the electrical plug comes out in a different place.

http://www.advancedfactors.co.uk/electrica...t-27-c.asp

You will need a fan spanner and a fan holding tool. 45 minute job for an experienced person if the fan comes off.

Don't ignore it, they are also known to wreck your battery Paul Redding
+44 (0)23 8052 2776
paul@advancedfactors.co.uk

Hi
My dads 55 plate tdv6 did this the beginning of the week, but the light went out and stayed out. On wednesday it broke down, luckily he had just managed to get off the main road. The alternator had gone and in the process cooked the battery, so i had the car recovered to my house. I fitted a new alternator on Thursday, not a bad job the hardest part was undoing the fan. The battery was 12 months old but had a 5 year guarantee so that was replaced foc.
Good luck with yours
Mark

Hi Guys

Have had an attempt at this today, absolutely could not budge the fan! I know that I need to turn clockwise from the front of car to undo, no matter how I try to brace the hub it just wont crack!

I have tried all manner of things including drilling holes in a steel bar and bolting onto the hub with one of the 10mm bolts, then bracing the bar whilst undoing the fan - the bar bent. It just seems fused solid, has anyone got any tips or technique for the hard to budge ones?

Thanks

I welded a couple of 10mm ring spanners together, so they fitted on 2 of the bolts. Then put a tube over it so i could hold the pulley in position while i got a pair of stiltsons with a tube on them. The fan came off quite easy then.