Ack! The first major problem on my car!

[Redline]

Well I live in Southern california and went up to northern cali(family lives there) for thanksgiving. On my way back down to socali(sunday) my battery light flashes and my stereo turns on and off. A few minutes later, it does it again. I get a little worried at this point and turn off the stereo. My battery light turns on again in a bit and this time it stays on. So I turn off all the electronics that i can (radar detector, cell phone adapter, fog lights, and my display backlights) and the battery light goes off. At this point, my windows role up super slow, so I keep them up and whenever we slowed down under 15mph(tons of traffic that day), the battery light would come on again. Car idles fine so I keep going until the next gas station. I pull in to the station and let the car sit for about 20 minutes with the engine running. Everything seems to be fine now. So just as a test, I turn off the engine. It doesnt turn back on. So my friend and I spend like 20 minutes finding someone who has jumper cables and who is willing to jump our car. Nobody has them. We finally find someone with jumper cables who is willing to help. Its a guy with a 2nd gen eclipse. In fact, he was a fellow import enthusiast. (I have a new found respect for import people that I usually assumed as riceboys... ;) ) Anyways... to make this long story short, We get on our way again and my power is just getting worse. My headlights are very dim, and the battery light comes on more often. I stop for gas and as we are getting to the gas station, my abs, airbag, brake lights all light up and my display starts flickering on and off. Then the car just dies. We pushed the car to the gas tank and filled up. We happened to see some old friends we knew who were getting gas also so we talk a bit and ask for a jump.(the guy has a 300zx tt) They give us a jump and the car dies as soon as i start to drive. We jump it again and it does the same. I then called the tow truck, got it towed to the nearest toyota dealership (bakersfield), and spent the night at a nearby motel 6. The dealership checked it out this morning and said I have to wait a day for the parts to come in so they rented me a 2001 nissan maxima se and I have to drive 2.5 hours back to bakersfield to get my car back tomorrow.

I am not too happy about all of this, but I guess it wasn't anyones fault. BTW, I had my car at the dealership about 2 weeks ago for its 30k mile maintenance where it costed me $250. Do you think that they should have caught early signs of this?

On a side note, The 2001 maxima se feels like a bus. I miss my car..... it does have some power though.

[mynewbaby]

was it your alternator?
I had two go out in my last car (a p.o.s. saturn)
I had to fix it myself, after i got the 1st one in there I found out it was a bad one and had to do it all over again. the 2nd one i got under warranty and it only lasted 7 months. I replaced it again and sold it.
my point: you are lucky to take it to the dealership because rebuilt alternators suck, saturns suck too.

my new gts is better in every possible way :D

[autxr]

Sounds like the alternator died, not a big deal (a little premature).

What sort of aftermarket electronics do you have (if any).

As for it being detected at the 30K mile service, no, that isn't a normal wear item that is checked.

The alternator dies, no longer charged the battery, the battery dies, the car stops.

You probably could have bought a new battery for $40 that would have gotten you to where you were going, but oh well.

Scott

[Redline]

I have no aftermarket electronics...

I guess I could have just bought a new battery, but I wasnt 100% sure at the time and didnt want to buy the battery and then find out theres something else wrong. Everything worked out ok though.