Originally Posted by Nanniepoo

Just thought I'd close the loop on this. Alternator was on it's way out. We were having issues with the battery being low on really cold days, and the car not starting, but things seemed fine on warmer (as in above 10 deg). Then on the way to visit the relatives, about 20 min of highway driving, we got a transmission malfunction, engine malfunction, disabled ABS, DSC warnings and the transmission downshifted. Pulled over, restarted, it was fine. Couple more weeks went by, same warnings happened to my wife a turn away from her work, parked, attempted to restart, didn't work. I ran over there after work, jumped it, but voltage was reading under 11V and got the christmas tree of lights again. We were both busy, so left it at work until the weekend, went to tow it but decided to jump it again, voltage read fine after starting so just drove it home. Battery held up fine in the two weeks it was parked in the driveway and things were happy post alternator install so can finally conclude it wasn't the battery, nor a drain, just a weak alternator.


However doing the job made me notice that there's a fairly significant leak from the timing covers and valve cover gaskets. I don't have time, so looking to taking it to an indy in the next couple weeks. Kind of wondering if the oil all over the alternator was part of its failure.