I'm gon na attempt to do this folks, uh. I do fancy screen recording stuff, but it's a little too much for me today. Our red trace i've got hooked to the generator sense wire. So right now it's holding about 14 and a half volts 14.3 um.

That's the wire going to the alternator that that it's going to use for a reference we'll say for lack of a better term. All there's going to look at that and say: hey, i'm putting out you know x amount. How much is it really putting out? You know how much am i getting so this? Basically, it's just letting the alternator know: hey i'm at 14 point whatever volts or 15 volts. The blue trace.

Is this generator duty cycle, the alternator duty cycle, which is currently off and nissan service data sucks, to say the least, but i did look and um it does describe how that system works uh when the instrument panel calls for a higher voltage or more alternator output. So to speak, then it turns on this alternator duty cycle. Otherwise it works in normal mode, not power mode. It's a it's a fuel economy strategy they have and then our green trace is the alternator case ground.

Because if we're losing case ground, we can lose um. It it'll it'll screw up the other part of the sense voltage. So if we lose case ground it can drive the voltage super high. That's usually the most common cause for an alternator over charging is just you know, poor ground in a sense circuit type system.

So i'm gon na take it for a drive, see if we can catch it in the act and then you know see if we just have a bad alternator or if we're losing signal sense, or it's pulling the duty cycle right straight to ground and making it Overcharge like crazy - i don't know so it's kind of hard to do all this at once. Uh, well, looking at all this stuff and driving and not dying like that kind of thing. So i think the pattern of this is is to pull over after you've been driving it for a little bit, wait a minute or so and then take back off. That's when it seems to be the most consistent.

Now i did notice when i was driving back there and i was slowing down and then speeding up. I did get it to do it, one time where the voltage went up to like 15.7. Just briefly - and i didn't see any anomalies over here other than high voltage, my battery light came on. Flickered did its thing, car act, kind of stupid and then away.

We went, i think, we're gon na find that we simply have a bad alternator uh. It wasn't being commanded at any point uh, you know where it was in its you know: power reduction mode or whatever you want to call it i'd have to. I got to look up that theory on that. For you, folks, the alternator seems to be a self-contained regulation system using a sense wire, the case ground, the l wire for the light, and then the blue trace that we have, that is this alternator duty cycle gives the cluster.

I think it came from the from the cluster, it picks up its information for the data network and then sends it out to the alternator. To put it in, you know, performance charging type mode. I think we simply have a bad alternator uh when it was acting stupid. The one i was paying attention to was our green trace, making sure our ground wasn't elevated and it wasn't.

But i'd like to get a good moment where it's really screwing up and i can pause and say yep boom. You know we're right needs an alternator move on with our day. Well, this is just as frustrating af. I cannot get this sucker to act up again.

I've done it twice now, the second time when i reached over to pause my uh screen recorder or not screen recorder, but the pico. I hit the space bar twice, so it paused it and then started off again. So i lost that on you the first time i just nearly paused it, because i thought for sure we're going to get to do it twice or three times eventually. Here, i'm just going to make the call.

I seen it with my own eyes, but i like to be able to prove stuff to you, because you guys have trust issues with me. At least, i think we do as the chief mechanic parts changer slash owner, i've made an executive decision to purchase an alternator and a belt and then replace it. We could probably drive this thing around a lot and spend lots of time a hundred percent. Getting you guys the perfect screenshot and showing you but you're gon na have to trust me.

I saw it with my papers. I know you guys think i'm lying because i'm smirking that's what my mom always said, but i'm not. I feel very confident in that. If that's not it, i don't know at this point, but that is a great question to ask yourself: if what you plan on doing doesn't fix it.

What are you going to do next, and you should have already done that and i think i have i think i've covered all those bases where, when i saw acting up, i wasn't losing a ground. The pcm wasn't commanding anything extra on the blue trace. So um remember, i told you that's that power management, fuel economy, gizmo doesn't really matter how it works. The fact that it wasn't commanding it on to charge higher or more more current is a good thing, because now we know we're just still dealing with the base.

Alternator system, it's internally regulated regulator for that matter, and that's all it can be. Nothing else was commanding it. We weren't losing a case ground and those are the only things in my opinion that can make it go high. Now some people are thinking like well, you clamped onto the alternator down there with the ground and then over here with the ground, maybe by clamping on your ground.

You clamped on the alternator and the bracket there by repairing the ground, but i made sure i didn't do that. I clamped on the alternator case only so i'm confident i got one ordered it's not gon na be here until tomorrow afternoon, but that's the best snapper can do and uh you guys are just gon na have to wait and see. We're gon na need this folks. Alternator is on the new belt is on we're getting us a 10 day sticker, so we can go drive it because it fails inspection.

So we need to put in a date here. So we get us a 10-day. I get one chance of this in the p-r-n-y uh, so we'll get us a 10 days. We go drive this sucker legally.

The registration on it is good, so uh once that prints out we're going to go, take it for a shakedown and see if we were right. We better tell mrs, oh, hey young lady, we're going for a drive brb. Let's get this little guy up here now. We're legal plus we got the cop sticker and then we'll stick this back on the inspection machine, okay, folks, oh man, i got ta turn off that at ac cranking because we had to recharge it because the alternators are super easy to do on these.

So no one ever you got ta pull the goddang ac compressor off to do them so we'll get her outside here and let her warm up a bit. Oh here's the note from the uh yeah the kia dealer, the uh nissan dealer, a very famous nissan dealer, located in rochester uh. Let's see here this says, uh manufacturer manufacturer recommended service. Electrical customer has had abs, wheel, speed, sensors you place on 1223 vehicle warning light.

Flash on when customer turned right calls caused by the vehicle was incorrectly diagnosed on repair order such and such the lead tech diagnosed an internal failure in the engine room harness it would need to have the entire harness replaced. Customer declined, repairs, wow anyhow, so that's that that's from the nissan dealer. So let's get the data pulled up on the screen. Now that we've talked about the 10 days, how to get them we're going to look at the voltage and then we're just going to drive it so right now, it's idling at 13.5 volts up here on the corner, scan tool.

Um! Sorry, i didn't bring you along on the diag. It's been a little uh crazy today, and we just need to get there out of here immediately. I see a difference because look at an idle before our charging voltage, i want to say, was near 14 volts um. Our alternator right now is duty cycling at 42 percent.

So that's quite interesting before it was at zero, and that's that's odd that it can that it has a sense circuit. It has control of it, but it doesn't throw a code for it, which is kind of kind of crazy. You would think that it would notice abnormality in there and throw a code. I would think, but in this case it doesn't.

I think it can detect that duty cycle signal wire. If there's a short in it, i think or open circuited. Perhaps because i do know it does have the ability to throw codes for the generator um. Okay, so anyhow, is what it is.

Let's go for a rip and see how we make out all right so far, so good folks, i'm extremely confident that we have it repaired uh. What i'm gon na do i wan na see if we can get a full drive suck out we're down to just two monitors. Left we've only been four miles: um i'm gon na keep the car overnight. I think she wants some more work done to it.

It's got some clunky sway bar links on it, just starting to get a little bit of rattle in the front and a little rattle in the rear. I believe she wants that stuff fixed too there we go we're down to just one monitor now, so we've ran enough of a drive cycle to get a legal state inspection. Though um you can't fail new york state for having loose, sway bar links. They have to be broken.

Uh, thankfully otherwise, like every car, would fail. So we're gon na head back to the shop here, we'll just jump on the highway, but the voltage has been just rock solid and the car hasn't missed a b. Obviously, no, you know no speed, sensor codes or anything, and oddly enough too, no codes at all no pending codes, nothing we were getting that one there for the intake tuning valve must be that was a product of you know the wonky voltages, for whatever reason, because I see that has not come back pending or current, so that's good um, but the lady did mention you know prior to having the issue with it. You know doing its thing.

She wasn't having any problems prior to that. So i guess this is it? It's kind of a silly fix, so this lady will be happy. The only thing she won't be happy about is that she already lost over a thousand dollars at the nissan dealership, which they should be a little bit embarrassed. This was not a difficult diagnosis.

Um, their service data kind of led me a little astray with the theory and operation on the alternator and how that functions uh, but in either case. That's it you know. No, i don't know what to say. Shame on you nissan! That's what i say, but anyhow, what i need you to do is go down in that comments say something to me, but what you think do you think the nissan dealer should give this lady her money back or she should just move on with life? I think she should get refunded in an apology and just say: hey sorry, lady, we were just guessing bye, you, let me know down there the questions, the comments, the concerns you have we're on the institute, we're on the facebook.

You know where to find us and just from our viewers, if i can do it, you can do it. I've got to point at you thanks for watching bonus footage. I just pulled in the shop and it actually ran the event monitor. So all the monitors are complete.

No codes charging steady, it's all good baby. It's all good!.