HELP!! Bad Voltage Regulator?

[bcredliner]

Doesn't apply to all areas and there are specified hours

[TerminatorX5]

Originally Posted by e30cabrio

My battery charges. It has been trickling since 7am and is at 13.6.

Start car right back to 12.4.

I ordered a reman. Dealer can reimburse or not and if they pull this ish many more times my lawyer will be talking to them.

On a psudo related note can I deactivate the "cooling" correct me if I am wrong but 230 degree water in 110 degree air inside a 140 degree engine compartment is absurd.

cooling? tell us more - i am too slow and i did not understand what you are trying to cool...

[e30cabrio]

I am trying to deactivate the silly water "cooled" alternator.

[JCL]

Originally Posted by e30cabrio

...can I deactivate the "cooling" correct me if I am wrong but 230 degree water in 110 degree air inside a 140 degree engine compartment is absurd.

It is not absurd IMO. The water cooled alternator provides benefits in terms of alternator temperature stability. The reasoning is that absolute temperature isn't as important as the variability in terms of alternator failures. When you have low engine speed, and low vehicle speed (ie no cooling), with high charging loads (ie every time you start it up at idle) you get temperature spikes. Water cooled alternators provide a more consistent alternator temperature. It is the same reason your engine is liquid cooled, liquid conducts heat better than air does. And you can get the coolant in to precisely where you want to cool the alternator, not just the outside as with air cooling.

It is also a pretty sophisticated alternator in terms of other design features.

I have read that it is also supposed to be quieter, but I would think you could solve that problem with more sound insulation under the hood.

I would fully expect that it fails more often as it is more complicated. Sort of the BMW engineering design ethos. But I would say it is over-engineered, not silly, as there are good reasons to use liquid cooling.

[e30cabrio]

My point is in Az. it is well over 100 8 months of the year and never (almost) under 50.

Coolant temp is 200+ so you are warming a device that does not need it whose #1 enemy is heat.

The place I got it from said it was the third one yesterday he sold and the 17th this month, 58th this summer!

[TerminatorX5]

wow, interesting statistics, 58 M62 engines losing the alternator... i am sure it is not just the X5, it also has to be Range Rovers too...

Generally I agree, cold is electricity's friend, hence the near absolute zero superconductors... However, I would agree with JCL, that once an item is designed to operate in 200 degrees environment, which is stable 200 degrees in the summer or in the winter, it is easier for the engineers to make it work... The Superheterodine principle for the radio receivers - instead of trying to make thing work across entire allocated radio spectrum, just focus on one, single frequency... It is all in the engineering... This opens up a can of worms, if the engineering design was good - but that is different story...

besides, wood floats, iron sinks... but, we still make boats out of iron (and yes, some of them do sink... well... a lot of them... but we still make them)

[e30cabrio]

This is just one small shop in Van Nuys, Ca. Not exactly the alternator capital of the world.

He said it was much higher this summer than usual but he is happy for the business.

I have rerouted my throttle body coolant pass through on every (5) car I have had since I moved to the land of the egg frying sidewalk.

I get in Minnesota you need to warm the intake air in -20 degree winter but not where it never gets near freezing.

As an aside the Titanic was steel and it WAS UNSINKABLE!

[TerminatorX5]

Originally Posted by e30cabrio

As an aside the Titanic was steel and it WAS UNSINKABLE!

sure thing... lol...

the other day Leonardo DiCaprio was spotted on a Carribean cruise ship... The passengers started jumping off the boat while ocean water was still warm

[upallnight]

Originally Posted by e30cabrio

This is just one small shop in Van Nuys, Ca. Not exactly the alternator capital of the world.

He said it was much higher this summer than usual but he is happy for the business.

I have rerouted my throttle body coolant pass through on every (5) car I have had since I moved to the land of the egg frying sidewalk.

I get in Minnesota you need to warm the intake air in -20 degree winter but not where it never gets near freezing.

As an aside the Titanic was steel and it WAS UNSINKABLE!

Fascinating!!!

Did we enter an Alternate Universe via the Romulans were the Titanic didn't sink after striking the Iceberg?

[e30cabrio]

Originally Posted by upallnight

Fascinating!!!

Did we enter an Alternate Universe via the Romulans were the Titanic didn't sink after striking the Iceberg?

Sarcasm.

But I can dig the alternate universe deal.

"Unsinkable" Titanic sinks — History.com This Day in History — 4/15/1912

Apr 15, 1912: "Unsinkable" Titanic sinks


The RMS Titanic, billed as unsinkable, sinks into the icy waters of the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage, killing 1,517 people.
The United Kingdom's White Star Line built the Titanic to be the most luxurious cruise ship in the world. It was nearly 900 feet long and more than 100 feet high. The Titanic could reach speeds of 30 knots and was thought to be the world's fastest ship. With its individualized watertight compartments, it was seen as virtually unsinkable.
On its first voyage, from Southampton, England, to New York with stops in Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland, the Titanic was carrying 2,206 people, including a crew of 898. A relatively mild winter had produced a bumper crop of icebergs in the North Atlantic, but the crew, believing their ship was unsinkable, paid scant attention to warnings.
On the night of Sunday, April 14, other ships in the area reported icebergs by radio, but their messages were not delivered to the bridge or the captain of the Titanic. The iceberg that struck the ship was spotted at 11:40 p.m. Although a dead-on collision was avoided, the Titanic's starboard side violently scraped the iceberg, ripping open six compartments. The ship's design could withstand only four compartments flooding.
Minutes later, the crew radioed for help, sending out an SOS signal, the first time the new type of help signal was used. Ten minutes after midnight, the order for passengers to head for the lifeboats was given. Unfortunately, there were only lifeboats for about half of the people on board. Additionally, there had been no instruction or drills regarding such a procedure and general panic broke out on deck.
The survivors--those who successfully made it onto the lifeboats--were largely women who were traveling first class. In fact, the third-class passengers were not even allowed onto the deck until the first-class female passengers had abandoned the ship. White Star President Bruce Ismay jumped onto the last lifeboat though there were women and children still waiting to board.
At 2:20 a.m., the Titanic finally sank. Breaking in half, it plunged downward to the sea floor. Captain Edward Smith went down with the ship. The Carpathia arrived about an hour later and rescued the 705 people who made it onto the lifeboats. The people who were forced into the cold waters all perished.
Official blame for the tragedy was placed on the captain and bridge crew, all of whom had died. In the wake of the accident, significant safety-improvement measures were established, including a requirement that the number of lifeboats on board a ship reflect the entire number of passengers. The sinking of the Titanic has become a legendary story about the dangers of hubris.
In 1985, after many attempts over many years, divers were finally able to locate the wreckage of the Titanic on the floor of the North Atlantic.