All right folks, we got ta, go outside grab this nissan maxima or altima nissan, something or other uh. It's been sitting at the dealer for over six weeks, i guess uh, the lady has a problem with it. Going into limp mode is what she tells me and from the sounds of it, that's what it does. It goes in some kind of reduced power mode and they had replaced uh.

I think she said a left front, wheel, speed, sensor, a left, rear, wheel, speed sensor or a couple wheel, speed, sensors, some sounds of it and then told her that she needs to buy an entire vehicle harness it needs the entire harness it's going to be. You know x amount of thousands of dollars and that's it. She didn't think that that seemed correct and just you know, paid her bill for, however much it was and and then had the vehicle towed out of here, so they towed it here. So i got it out there running uh, it's out of registration and inspection and all that stuff.

So she went ahead. The dealer had it for so long. She just bought a new car because she didn't think there's anything. You know that was going to be done, but she doesn't want to jump this car just yet.

She thinks it's savable and tells me that if we drive it for about five minutes that this is going to happen, so i got out there running. Let it warm up a little bit and we're going to go out we're going to pull coats out of it. We're going to see if it has any code stored in it. I don't think it will, because i think she said the battery was dead when they went to get it um.

But if it does we'll make note of that, if it doesn't we're going to take it for a rip and see what the heck's making this car quit lovely day out of my right welcome to spring in new york uh, it's supposed to be 70 out in A couple days here, so, let's see it's just about done scanning, it does look like there are some codes in it. So that's good. Let's see so. We've got a variable intake.

Air system pending code must be. Can com circuit 39 times? That's interesting! History, history, history! These are all history codes, vehicle speed signal errors, so this is pretty interesting, so i tell you what i'm going to save these and then we're going to take i'm going to do a quick erase, because i don't want to be led astray if they've been fiddling With something i had things unplugged, so we're going to clear them, i'm going to save them clear them and then we're going to go drive it all right. So coach has cleared out everything, it's wiping them out of the hvac which reads really slow at this point. Uh and then we're going to go, take it for a toot there.

She is clean and green, so back out of that screen and then we're just gon na go for rip. Hopefully, this thing doesn't have banana peels for tires because today's not the greatest day to be going for a rip super inconvenient uh to get stranded when it's cold out, but we'll see what happens see if we can observe things. Speedo seems to be working. Maybe i'll.

Stop up at the dg up here and pull up some abs data because it sounds like whatever they were doing. They were in that direction. Uh the roads are nice and slippery, so we can do some abs stops and traction control. We can see you kind of can't get this thing to goof up, so i just got to the end of main street here and all these lights pop down, so we haven't made it very far.

Of course, i was close enough to the stop and it doesn't seem to be in reduced power or anything. Oh yeah, we got a flickering all nature light. That's interesting so brake abs flickering battery light, but we do hear the belt squealing under the hood but, like i say, we're still going the way this lady talked it just just wouldn't go! Oh here we go now she's done yep, oh boy! Oh there. She goes.

Oh yeah come on baby. We ain't walking today nissan, but we better start making it to the side of the road. So whatever happened happened. This is convenient and she warned me gosh dang it.

She warned me we're so we're just coasting right now i give it throw. Oh, oh now we're hooking, so the speedo drops off the engine's still running speedo's back, but we got a key light cds off. So, let's see if we can't at least lip back to the shop, i don't think this has anything to do with speed, sensors folks, i don't dare shut it off. So i'm going to take the slow ride back to the shop or at least up around the corner here, hopefully see we're going to cut through here cut the little bank parking lot uh what i've noticed or the observation i've made.

If i stop and wait a little bit, it does go out, traction control does work. Um abs, abs functions, um. I was kind of thinking. This was results of like loading, the engine um, but i can't really see a pattern with it yet, but we're just going to try to make it back to the shop and then we're going to rescan it so yeah it doesn't seem to be speed related.

So, let's rescan it see with it what kind of codes it through and see. If it we can get some direction as to what we're going to test get this seatbelt up here. Let this go through. It does look like it through a bunch of codes.

Probably loss of communication is what i'm thinking that's what this is acting like um, certainly not acting like a you know, a speed sensor or something there. You know possibly a ground or something was missing because you would see the speedometer drop off. You know the alternator light was just flickering like it was losing battery power. Um, we're gon na have to come up with a plan here and even the lights that were coming on.

They didn't seem bright to me if that makes sense, they came on and they were just kind of dim. So, let's see well. I guess that vc bds light and traction light isn't super bright, all right, pretty interesting: okay, yeah! It throws these vehicle speed signal errors, but i think that that's probably just a result of of the bigger problem here. Um yeah.

I don't i don't honestly, like my guts, tell me it's just catching these codes simply because you know, like i said i think that's results of a bigger problem. Uh battery voltage abnormal is interesting that it sets in the abs um, hmm what i want to do. Kind of sucks - i i don't know i don't think it'll totally leave us stranded. I think what we need to do is, if i remember right on these nissans.

I think you know. Of course we could look this up. I believe it. You know this wheel.

Speed goes to the abs abs broadcasts at speed on the network and then um. You know that's where everybody picks up their speed signal. I think so. I think what we need to do.

Let's go, let's go into the abs and then let's drive it and monitor battery voltage and speed signals and see see what happens. I don't know if this has battery voltage in here, but that's going to be my that's going to be my approach to see. Let's see if it's in here to see if they have battery voltage, okay, they do there and then i'm going to find speed signal from these guys and then we're going to see what happens when we drive it see. Does this voltage all of a sudden drop right off to you know zippy zap, we know down at the data link, we've got 14.3 but i'll be curious to know what this thing does.

So we'll put the minimum we'll say at 10 volts and we'll put the max at 15.. So we have a good graph and we'll see what happens here so just revving it up. It seems to be pretty steady and then i'm not going to bother graphing all these, but i'm just going to go for a ride and see. If there's an anomaly here see.

Does that drop right down to like nothing like it's losing ground or losing power um? Because this might give us some clues so far, so good we've made it further than we did the first time i see all the lights are on. I don't see any dropouts or glitches so far, some vehicles when you're reading the abs, uh and you have the scan tool hooked up. It does disable it and turn on all the lights i may get up here. If it doesn't seem to act up and we might have to back back out and take a different approach but i'll, let you know what happens here so i think that is the deal.

Let me back back out of here. Yep and all the lights are off. So if i select abs yep as soon as i select abs, it does flick on all the lights, so uh normal or not, i don't know um i've seen it before no codes in it. So that's interesting! I'm going to drive it one more time with our data on the screen.

If it doesn't act up, i'm going to back out of it, so the abs is active and see if it makes a difference. I know it sounds ridiculous, but this is some of the silly things you have to do folks, so i'm just driving along and i was hammering on the throttle and that happened that voltage went up. I don't know if you guys can see i'm trying not to die here and drive, but the voltage spiked super high. So maybe that's what it means by abnormal voltage.

Maybe it's crazy high. Maybe the alternator is going wonky and putting out super high voltage. Let me uh come on a straight spot here. Let me see if this happens again.

No, it didn't happen that time, hopefully you guys can see. I don't know what you guys can see without the glare nothing the vehicle didn't go stupid or anything, but uh voltage did well over 15., so it doesn't seem to be doing anything as long as i'm in the abs i'm going to take him back back out. I'm gon na pop just so that way there those lights stay off. I haven't had the alternator light flickering either.

Probably should look back through my data and watch up here in the corner screen to see if it was doing anything, i'm gon na pull up some engine data and i'm gon na take it for another rip here back to the shop, no more uh, some more Anomalies, i tried multiple things while driving it tried various different electrical loads. Like i turned on the rear, defogger high beams blower on high, you know to try to really load down the electrical system, but no change, so i'm going to go after visual inspection, but i don't want to fiddle with a whole lot. I'd really like to see this happen again: okay, we do have a pretty fair amount of corrosion and crap. Looking there that's kind of what i was wondering so because i'm kind of exploring the possibilities of charging system fault, whether it be overcharging or under charging, or you know, excessive, ac voltage being applied to the system.

I think the the speed sensor codes that it's throwing like it's. There are just the results of a bigger problem. Uh. I think people are barking up their own tree.

You know human speed sensors like this uh, something like this here like i said i don't want to wiggle it a whole lot, but this would give me some concern a little bit because that's a little bit nasty there. I think what we're going to do something non-invasive here we're going to see if this is going to work, see if i don't know if these cables work there, we go we're going to do some voltage drop testing so we're just going to and voltage drop testing Simply is just checking the difference between you know, point a and point b: what's the potential difference, so the voltage difference from center of the battery post to the negative cable, you know center battery post to the engine lock and so on and so forth. Here center battery post to this cable and then this cable and they all have to be done under load now. Are these tests going to be valid? I don't know because you know the problem isn't currently happening, but i do need to gather some data to see you know.

If we see you know. Perhaps we see some big voltage drop here. I don't know and then we'll we'll check, to see how much ac ripple uh the alternator is putting out we're gon na do all these tests with as much load on the engine as i can electrically so um. You know blower on high rear, defogger headlights.

You know stuff like that, i'm going to check for ac ripple initially, and it's only about 50 millivolts, the ac voltage being put out. So it's not going to tell us real, quick, there's a dial to the alternator. It likes it pretty good. I'm going to take and we're going to pop back or pop on to dc bolts, 20 volt scale um 30 seconds on the screen.

Hopefully you guys can see. I know sometimes that gets kind of a funky glare see maybe right there. Perhaps let's just see what our charging voltage is that matter 14.08, that's with a full load on everything that seems pretty normal. So then we're going to voltage drop we're going to put our scale down here.

On 200 millivolts 0.1 millivolts of voltage drop on the negative, bring our scale up here kind of in the middle of the screen. That's really good, i don't imagine. We have a voltage drop to the to the engine block simply because the car cranks over really well go right to the engine block and we only have an average of 21 millivolts of voltage drop there. It is pretty cash, then we're going to check both the drop on our positive lead here.

So this one one of these comes across the fuse grabs, a couple of them new, but we're going to have some voltage drop. This one drops about 15 millivolts. Currently, i think it runs through a fuse anytime. They go through a fuse you're going to have some voltage drops, but on this battery terminal itself, we've got 2.2.

You know two tenths of a millivolt, so these are all pretty low numbers and again you know the problem's not currently happening. So it's hard to say whether these numbers are going to be relevant, no huge anomaly there. Yet so the alternator does appear to be original. Doesn't look like anybody's been down there and touched it? I think all the squawking and stuff we're hearing is just you know.

It's an old belt looks like original two, maybe 180 000 miles on that belt, perhaps against my better judgment, i'm going to take and clean this mess up where these, where these connections are bad um. I personally my gut tells me that we have uh we're gon na end up having you know, voltage, problem or ground issue. That's gon na fix our problem, just kind of based on well based on nothing based on the little bit of data that we've gathered. So i'm gon na do that.

The lady said this thing is pretty persistent at its problem. It happened so much so that she can't even drive the car. I'm gon na clean that up make sure everything's cool there and then and then we're just going to have to give it a go again. She says usually within five miles.

You know the car leaves her walking like i say to the point: she just went and bought a new car. So, let's uh take care of that that we know that's, you know not going to be a problem and then it's just going to come down to just driving it. Some more so i went and took this all apart took the terminal here and stuck it in the sandblast tore it all apart. It had a ton of corrosion.

I wonder if there's going to be anything left to it, i think it still has some integrity, so we're going to reuse that i didn't bother showing you guys the process, because, frankly, i think most of you folks know how to clean a battery terminal. At this point we're going to take, i don't believe it's the proper size battery for this car, but it shouldn't make a difference in our situation here. I think it's kind of about where they need to be we're going to douche everything down. I took all the connectors off the bottom of the fuse assembly like they took the terminal out split it apart, got all the corrosion crap out of it took this cable off scraped all the corrosion.

There obviously cleaned the the lead terminals here and then we're going to give her a good douching of the film get the stuck back together, get everything tightened back up blocking my window square uh. Mrs oh says we got 10 minutes. So let's go drive for our 10 minute amount of time we have before we do that. Oh we've got something beeping at us, we'll uh, take and um clear the codes i think i'll.

Let it run through a false guy. I think i cleared him. Maybe not everything is clean and green. The ecm did have that code in it for the uh variable intake system, so that you know very well potentially could be a problem.

What we'll do is we'll drive our you know a couple minutes, five minutes that way. Five minutes back this way to keep mrs zoe happy and well and keep me happy, because that's when lunch is ready, if it doesn't act up, what we're gon na do is just leave it outside. Let it get chilly again, uh the lady didn't say it needed to be cold. It was pretty persistent from the sounds of it um and then we're just gon na try again - and at least we know what we know now and we kind of have a little bit of direction there.

We go about four miles just so it happens to be the distance to twin kiss. No, i love for the day when this place reopens it's coming. Folks, it's coming soon, so we're going to take a turn around here, no uh hitching it's getting up yet. Oh two and guess how i missed the yeah all right, we'll head back to the shop, eat some lunch.

I don't think anything's coming hang on just in case there is nope there wasn't so just kind of watching battery voltage. It just got real stupid there. Okay, so something is going stupid that seemed to be when we turned down or yeah. We turned down.

We slowed down, hunga louie, so let's see here so we slowed down. We stopped about the same time. We talked about twin kiss. We took back off, let's see if just the act of taking off does anything it doesn't appear to.

Of course we got no lights or anything there. I don't think that was anything normal. So we'll do there's a place up here. I can turn in and we can uh we can pull.

Another left turn just to see. If that has anything to do with it. Okay just did whatever it did there we're just going straight. We made a little bit of a left turn.

I see the voltage is up to about 16 volts, it's running real high and erratic. There was a bit of a left-hand turn in the road, so we're gon na pull in here, which is a full full-on left just to see if it does anything. So that was kind of interesting, no lights or anything came on at that point, so we're turning left right now, yep voltage just went real high i'll. Tell you what let me uh take another left yeah, look at that, so it has something to do with.

Turning left, it's putting that voltage up to 17 volts, or so i'm holding the steering wheel tight to the left right now, so i'm gon na, so the steering wheel is sitting stationary. I got it tight to the left, okay, so i'm moving it left and right, which it says, electric power steering so perhaps there's some funny business. There shouldn't be funny to the point: it's taking it that high. Let me put the car apart, hold the rpms up.

Yeah wheels are cramped off to the left and did get about 17 volts there, which is way too high, turning the wheel to the right, nothing turning the wheel back to the left. That's all the way left, okay, so it's kind of weird. So this is quite uh. This is cool.

I think we're on to something i believe the over charging uh, you know running at the 17. Volts is likely the cause of all of our other problems when it was doing that the speedometer was also dropping out. So um, i think this is where we need to focus our efforts is on the overcharging more than any other problem. 16.8 at night.

I'll be great. If this thing just had a bad alternator, alternator duty signal alternator duty, okay, so this is good. So we can see you know this thing being commanded. You know what what's the pcm doing, while this thing's going hooptie on us, which we'll find out after lunch, because we can watch battery voltage i'll read a little bit about the theory and operation on it.

No, we don't want to exit and then we'll uh kind of devise a plan here simply because i'm near certain that if we resolve this problem, oops that's gon na be annoying. If we resolve the problem with the charging system, it's likely gon na fix. All of our other problems because they seem to be so related, so i think that's going to be the easiest thing for us to look at and test and see. What's going on there, i can't think of a better plan at this point uh.

It all seems to be related whether or not the alternator is causing the problem or you know, or it's called elevator whether or not the over voltage is causing the problem or it's the results of a problem. You know, for example, let's say the pcm's going wonky. You know putting the alternator at full beans, you know making it pump out all this voltage um, i don't know. I know some of you guys are commenting on the fact that it's squeaking and squawking over there right now to me personally.

That sounds like a belt. Squeal, so i'm not super concerned with that, but uh, let's uh eat lunch and come up with a plan. You.