1998 S70 T5. Battery light issues.
Battery light came on a couple weeks ago & I replaced the battery & had the alternator checked. It checked out. A day later the light came back on I took to a garage found out that the door latch had gone bad & the light stayed on drawing from battery constantly. Fixed the prob. Drivin home from the garage the light came back on! When they checked it again,told me that the battery light had gone off & had no way of telling what the problem unless the light came back on. Gotta a price on replacing the alternaor (still not sure if thats the actual problem) $500 parts and lobor! I told him I didnt want to throw more money at this if we werent 100% sure that the alt was the problem. Already blew $300 on it and dont want to toss in another $500. I'm sure I can change the alternator myself, doesn't look too hard. Before I dive into this, just wanted to put it outhere & see if there is anything else I should check, or have checked with this issue. Thanks

 

Bad battery cable. Take the positive cable connection apart and clean between all the wires and put it back together and you should be good for a while. You can also purchase a cable and replace the piece from the battery to the starter. www.FCPEuro.com and www.iPdusa.com sells them.

 

Thanks. I'll check it out. I forgot to mention in my first post that while I drive around the battery eventually goes dead after about 30 min. Would that still be a cable problem?

 

How are you getting the battery to charge? The 30-45 minutes is about the run time for a fully charged battery to run the car before the battery drains. You'll see the tach and lights fail and the car will start to stumble and just stall. I know this from experience and have a jumper power pack as a result.

Anyway, take the sepentine belt off the alternator pulley. Give the alternator pully a good spin and grab the pulley. If the armature continues to spin (even a little) with the pulley held in your hand it needs to be replaced. There is some kind of clutch thing in there. I had this happen. There was enough drag to keep the light off when idling, but under load (lights on, battery loading the alternator, etc.) There was not enough grip to keep it turning.

One last thing, check your serpentine belt. On a 2000 S70, both sides of the serpentine belt have ribs. The backside of the belt runs against the alternator. If this is the caes on a 1998 and you have a 1 sided belt you will also have this problem. Been there, done that....

 

Yes, if the cable is bad or connection is poor, the battery wont take a charge.