[QUOTE=bcredliner;1114346]If he had brought the X into a mechanic for the simple stuff that he did he wouldn't be in this pickle. He already stated that the X was running fine before he started working on it. Unlike you who think that every body should be working on their X instead of taking it in, I know what it takes to fix a modern car and most people that come on this board either don't have the knowledge or the tools to work on their car. They end up making it worse and costing them more money when they do finally give up.

My older brother is an emergency room doctor but he knows absolutely nothing about fixing a car. I, on the other hand, know a lot about fixing cars but absolutely nothing about medicine. Should I operate on myself because I know how to fix cars? Absolutely not. A man got to know his limitation and I know mine.

Actually the amps are going to the battery. They don't freeflow. They aren't going to jump around and nail your nav or your stereo or the seat heaters.

That's not how amps work.

As long as volts don't go up the amps going to the battery can be 1 million (that's assuming the battery doesn't explode :) )

Amps is the measurement of current across the wires.

I can test this with my clamp amp meter if you want proof video wise but this is how it works.

If I were to clamp onto the wire leading to the battery from the alternator I would show 10 amps or 20 or whatever the alternator is putting out at that moment.

But if I clamp to the wire leading to say the radio I will see 2 amps or 4 amps or whatever the radio is consuming. I wont see the amps that are going to the battery.

See what I mean?

What usually messes up a vehicle when its jump started isn't the amps its the volts.

When you jump start someone the large load from the dead cars battery can cause the voltage to reach 20 to 30 volts or more. This is enough to fry computers etc. That's the risk in jumping someone.

It has nothing to do with the amps being put out by either cars alternator.

Also hooking up jumper cables or a battery charger backwards on a dead car is bad, very bad. I have seen this done many times.

If you hook them up backwards on a good battery you get sparks and usually the battery in the car is strong enough when not dead to resist the current being reversed.

But on a dead battery there isn't a buffer to protect anything so presto reverse current and dead electronics.

That is for a battery that is not dead. If you looked at the video I posted the poster clamp an inductive amp clamp from the alternator to a DEAD battery and the reading was around 70 AMPS.

Well according to Wpoll if an alternator was pushing 80-120amps the voltage have to be around 20volts. A radio will only draw so many amp, but like I stated before the spike in voltages and amps can damage other components. For example you can burn out a light bulb if you feed it too many voltages, that is why you don't put 6 volts bulbs in a 12 volts system.

Amps and volts are not related that way.

I have 1 millions amps at 12 volts.

Voltage is measured in volts, current is measured in amps and resistance is measured in ohms. A neat analogy to help understand these terms is a system of plumbing pipes. The voltage is equivalent to the water pressure, the current is equivalent to the flow rate, and the resistance is like the pipe size.

Not according to Ohm's Law.

Ohm's law defines the relationship between the voltage, current, and resistance in an electric circuit: i = v/r. The current is directly proportional to the voltage and inversely proportional to the resistance.

An alternators voltage output should stay consistent when it ups the amps.

I said SHOULD. The problem is it doesn't most of the time.

One example is my f250 and my f150 trucks.

The F150 sits at 14 volts or more all the time when running.

My F250 sits at 13.3 or 13.6 volts all the time when running.

If I turn on headlights both alternators ramp up to handle the load.

Both trucks stay about the same voltage but they are both putting out more amps to handle the load.

BUT if I turn on the ac power inverters in either truck and plug in my weedeater and pull the trigger the volts go up AND the amps go up. This because car alternators are not "perfect" in their voltage regulation when pushed hard.

These inverters are pushing both trucks alternators to the max. But at the same time even though both are pushing around 100 amps they don't spike up but 1 or 2 volts. Then they stabilize back out.

If an alternator goes to 20 volts then the regulator is bad or poorly designed. I have never seen any of my bmw's hit more than 15 volts when charging a dead battery or under heavy load.

I cut and pasted the plumbers thing to try to come up with something simple to explain it. Explaining ohm's law in this isn't going to make it simpler to understand :)

In this analog as to damaging the system with the amps from the alternator is that the amps are point to point - alternator to battery. They are not involved in the rest of the cars electrical system. No more amps are leaving the battery to the rest of the cars electrical unless a device in the car is pulling them. There isn't going to be an increase in amps going to the computer, stereo, or the windshield wipers just because the alternator charging the battery heavily.

I learn Ohm's law back in the 60's when I was in High School. If they can't understand Ohm's law they have no business working on cars.

With todays schools Im impressed when people know how to put batteries in a flashlight....

Both of my kids are clueless when it comes to cars. They grew up helping me rebuild motors, transmissions, etc.

Basically if its not on a video game or involving their cellphones they have no clue how something works.