k, here,s the deal crew. I have a streetglow goldlines series neon kit, apc indiglo gauges, 3a racing fog lights, and indiglo pedals, and a decent system as far as lighting/audio mods. everything was coo up until a couple of days ago, i was cruising home at night (only time can see my indiglo in all its glory) and i noticed my guages flicker every once in a while. i thought that it might be my system draining a lil power even though its never done it b4. so i turned my sh*t off even though the flickering wasnt going along with the music. this did not help. and i also noticed when i use something else electrical (ie. highbeams, blinker, "roll" up and down my window) they flicker then too, this never happend b4. with my car turned off, i "rolled" my windows up and down and they seemed to struggle like not enough juice. my car is 2 years old(2k) and has 40000k on it. any thoughts of what could cause this??? could my battery or altinator be taking a poo on me already??? im pretty dumb in the head so any help would be greatly appritiated. thanks

 

Hey man..chances are your alternator is going. You have alot of extra mods done to your car that takes some juice. As far as your system goes...how much power are you pumping out? Do you have any capacitors connected to your system? The neon and indiglow accessories don't really take too much power. The main things drawing power would be your fog lights and sustem.

As of right now, your alternator might be going so either swap it out and get a new one (preferably larger) and maybe think about getting a cap for your system, depending on how large it is. Good luck.

L8TR........

 

i have the 3a racing foglights and my tib is only 15k miles old and they cause my car to sometimes flicker, or almost die when i have the lights on and the ac blasting it really pissed me off, those suckers draw alot of juice

 

i have an earthquake 2000 watt d series amp and an earthquake 700watt 4 channel amp, but im only runnin 500 a piece to my 15's from the 2000 watt and its a digital amp, they are both digital actually. and ive had the system for like 6 months and no probs, and the flickering will still happen when only my headlights are on (all my other sh*t turned off. i have also noticed that when i turn my car over, oh id say maybe 1 outta 6 times there is like this nasty, i wouldn't quite say grinding noise, maybe scraping noise, hard to explain?? it started happening around the same time as the flickering. any ideas??? thanks a bunch crew!!!!!

 

Yeah dude...unfortunately, it does sound like it's your alternator acting up. Go somewhere that does testing on alternator's and have it checked out. If you don't get it fixed, you could end up with more bigger problems down the road with your electrical system. Good luck!

L8TR........

 

It also could just be a crappy ground. Check the engine ground strap.

Check the grounding in all of your equipment.

Lastly...that stuff with the power windows. That is normal. My stock headlights dim when I activate the power windows up or down, they flicker even more if I try "up" when the window is up or "down" while the window is already down. Those window motors are either really crappy, very poorly grounded...or just suck a lot of juice...

 

k here is the latest. today i was driving and all of the sudden my windshield whipers came on. they went up and down twice and stopped. and my air bag light came on for about 15 seconds. what the hell is going on??? id take it to the dealer, but i know they pull some sh*t saying my lighting mods caused this crazyness, which is probably true. so if this new info helps any1 come up with a solution plz post. thanks crew!!!

 

Sounds like something I had on the head unit. It used to went out of power for few minutes once a week or so and I had to reset the stations and settings. It turned out the metal pre-amp AV plug caps were loosed and the wire was touching the frame. I fixed it and it is fine now. My guess is your wires for gauges and lighting might have in contact with another wire or ground causing the flickering especially on bumpy roads. Or you might have accidentally cut/shreaded some wires.

 

yeah I am with Random, double check your ground strap on your engine!! I have had the same rpob, and killed my battery and altnator plenty of times with the ground strap. Chack that to make sure it is nice and tightly bolted.

 

well i did some tightenin' of some bolts, grounds/battery etc. and it seemed to work. so far so good. thanks for all the help crew!!!! smile.gif