I ran into a kinda odd one yesturday on my 02 z06 i recently bought and was hoping someone could help.

The other night I started the car and the information center started going nuts telling me I need to service my abs, active handling, and traction systems. The car drove fine and I had no issues going home. I restarted the car as soon as I got there and it was gone and all was back to normal. I researched on here and came to the conclusion it might be my battery(unknown age but it's an optima red top, which I'm personally no fanboy of but that's another story), my alternator, or my abs module. I checked my voltage on the battery with my ohm meter(car was off) after it hadn't ran all night and it registered 12.35 volts. After driving it last night, I checked it and it registered 12.46v. I started the car and turned off all accessories and checked again and it registered 14.51 volts. The battery voltage while the car was off seemed a little low but then I went and researched the battery to find out its only a 12v battery to begin with. Additionally, I stopped past autozone and the guy tried to run a diagnostic thing on my battery and it only showed a 65% charge so he didn't get any further than that. He sold me a 2amp slow charger but it didn't seem to charge any on the chargers little gauge after I had it plugged in over night.

Part of my thoughts that it is battery or alternator related stem from the way my headlights dim quite a bit if I hit my window switch or something while driving; it's very noticeable, especially if I hit the window up button while it's already all the way up.

I took apart and cleaned out the two chassis grounds on the engine bay frame rails thinking that might help per the general recommendation by Bill in one of his threads. Are there any other things I might be missing or additional tests I should try?

I daily drive the z06 so I can't just leave it parked waiting on a battery to charge. It starts fine now but I went ahead and threw my jumper box thing in the trunk just in case. I'm tempted to go buy a liquid battery from Walmart or sams club and run it for 3 or 4 days to see if all my dimming issues go away then if it fixes the issues, order a better replacement drycell battery online then return the liquid battery after I'm done sorting out my issue.

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

 

Mine has done this if it has sat for a while, no battery tender etc. Always cleared up after one drive. These cars are very touchy with regard to the electrical voltage. I would say you are probably going in the right direction with the battery.

 

I hope that's all it is. At first I didn't want that to be the issue but then I remembered the fact that batteries are an easy fix and if it ends up being an alternator or something worse, it will most definately cost more also.

 

Sure sounds like a battery issue to me.