Hey all, back again with another Q for the Volvo pros!

Drove home from work yesterday, and my car sat for maybe 30min in my driveway. Went outside to take off again, and I couldn't get it to start. Low voltage or bad battery, I think, so just jump it and go about my merry way. Took it to a (non-Volvo specific) shop where cousin/mechanic works, and he tested it out. He told me that it would appear that the alternator, not the battery, is the culprit. Stated that I should see a 14 volt level coming off the alternator, and I was in the low 13 range. Rolled over to O'Reilly Auto Parts, and had them do the same test. Their hand-held kept saying that my engine needed to be turned off, when the car was off w/ the key in my hand (WTF?) However, the hand-held also said that I had a bad diode in the alternator. My cousin/mechanic rolled in a few minutes later, and felt confident about the bad diode/alternator replacement diagnosis.

My Q to the fine members of the board is this: could this actually be a misdiagnosis, and the true culprit be the voltage regulator? Are the any steps I could do to determine this more accurately? I'd really hate to drop several hundo on an alternator and labor if it's just the VR. But, I'm at 88K+ miles, so this may not be a totally unexpected failure for an alt. Many hearty thanks in advance for any assistance on this, folks!

 

i would say it actually is the alternator.. my 01 with 80,000 miles had the alt just go out one day basically the same way yours did.. you can pick up a remanufactured one around $150 or so usually