My 1998 CamaroSSis at a shopin central florida that is pretty known and has been for two weeks. I am starting to think I need to panic because it has been having an electrical problem for what seems like forever now and can't seemed to be solved. Heres as much info as I can provide. The car is just at 90,000 miles and seems to run almost fine but for the fact that the voltage always drops when the car is stopped at lights to below the red and will go lower at times. The new symtom its been doing is while driving the cars dash lights will all light up and the odometer will zero out and the car will almost seem turned off then it all comes back on. But the other day at a light the whole car just shut off. I got out hit the battery terminals using no reasoning for doing it then got back in and the car and it started. The car has a seminew optima battery red top, powermaster 200 amp alternator, new 4 gauge wires and connectors, new battery terminals. I need help the car has been at the shop two weeks and they don't know whats wrong.

 

How old is the alternator or is it semi new like the battery? Does it start fine or do you have to get jumps due to the battery always being dead?

 

The alternator is semi new as well as the battery and both have been tested and are fine. The car starts just fine but this problem as led to multiple batteries failing with in their return period/ warrenty period.

 

you're saying you have tried different batteries and the same problem occurs? i work at an auto parts store and have seen the optima batteries have quite a few issues with failing. and sometimes a battery will check out that its okay but really has a dead cell in it or something. you may also want to check all your grounds and make sure everything is okay there

 

Id say your alternator has a bad diode dude. Your alternator naturally produces AC, while your car runs on DC. The diode converts the AC to DC, and once it goes bad, the first symptom will be a bad battery, after that, if left alone for a while, it can start damaging other electronics. Sounds to me like you pretty much fried the car. How long ago did you get your alternator checked? and did you have it checked with one of the handheld things or bench tested?

 

the more i think about it, the alternator does sound like a possible culprit. you'd think the shop would give that a shot though which is what is throwing me off. if they haven't, at this point it can't hurt to throw one on there and see what happens