Brandon Therens

I tried disconnecting the alternator and attached a charged battery to the vehicle, and when I tried starting it it fired right up. The vehicle has about 130000 km (around 80000 miles) so needing to replace the alternator isn't all that surprising. Checked with my uncle who manages an auto parts store and he can get me one for around $200 so hopefully that will resolve the problem. Thanks again for the advice everyone.

Thanks for the replies. I have another battery that I will try using tomorrow to see if it makes any difference. What concerns me is that even while jumpered on to another vehicle, there still isn't enough power to start the vehicle. My thoughts all along were that the alternator was to blame. Would you recommend disconnecting the alternator and trying to start the vehicle using the battery (fully charged) alone? If the alternator is the problem wouldnt one be able to confirm this using this method? Or is this a bad idea in these newer vehicles? Thanks again for your help.

I have a 2009 Dodge Journey R/T, and everything was working fine until one day I noticed that occasionally while driving the stereo and navigation system display would get all distorted and then lose power completely. A couple minutes later however it would power on again. A few days later I went to start the vehicle (and it had been running earlier that day) and it would not start. It just made a clicking sound as if the battery had been drained. I used another vehicle with jumper cables to start it, and it fired up right away. However, in order to keep it running I had to press on the gas to keep the engine rpm up to at least 2000 rpm or so. If I left it to idle, the battery warning light symbol would come on, and all the other warning lights would light up just as they do when you turn the key on before starting the engine. Pressing on the gas a bit would make these lights go off as well as the battery one. If left to idle any longer the engine would just die after a couple of minutes. I thought it might have been the battery causing the problems so I put a charger on it for a while and was still unable to start the vehicle. I removed the battery, charged it up and used a tester on it. It is rated for 640 CCA and tested at 590 and at a voltage of 12.9 V. The tester indicated that the battery was good. When I tried using a different vehicle jumpered on to the battery connections of this vehicle, It would not start it either. The dash lights would light up when connected and the power locks would make a sound like they were trying to work. Only the rear power windows would work not the front ones. It appears there is next to no current available from the electrical system to run these components. When I removed the cables after having been attached only a couple of minutes, and also when I had the battery attached to the vehicle and had the battery charger on it, I noticed that the alternator became VERY hot to the touch. This was not when the vehicle was running - only when it was charging from either the battery charger or from being jumpered on to another vehicle's battery. It appears nearly all of the current flowing into the electrical system is being lost to the form of heat at the point of the alternator, judging from how hot that alternator became. Could this indicate a bad alternator? Is there some component of an alternator such as a diode or something that could be causing a short within the system that is draining the battery and preventing it from starting the vehicle? Or is it possible that there is a short somewhere else? The fact that the alternator got so hot made me think that it could be at that point where the problem is, but I thought maybe it could be anywhere along the circuit and the whole thing may in fact heated up like that, but I thought a fuse would've blown somewhere or something. If I can save the expense of having it towed/hauled to a garage that would be great because I live in a rural area and a repair shop is quite a distance away from me. Thanks very much for any advice