Loss of power ----- please help
12-27-2023, 03:13 PM
#1
Loss of power ----- please help
Hi everybody.
05 c6, 83k miles
was driving all day the other day fine. All of a sudden as I was driving battery voltage started dropping rapidly. Car slowly was losing power so I pulled over and shut it off. Now fully dead, took it to AAA, they tested battery, alternator, starter, and fuses, all checked out ok. Now they having it towed to dealership.
Any ideas if it's not the alternator, battery, starter, or fuse? My daily driver of 2.5 years, dealer can't look at it till Tuesday, so this really isn't fun.
05 c6, 83k miles
was driving all day the other day fine. All of a sudden as I was driving battery voltage started dropping rapidly. Car slowly was losing power so I pulled over and shut it off. Now fully dead, took it to AAA, they tested battery, alternator, starter, and fuses, all checked out ok. Now they having it towed to dealership.
Any ideas if it's not the alternator, battery, starter, or fuse? My daily driver of 2.5 years, dealer can't look at it till Tuesday, so this really isn't fun.
12-27-2023, 03:21 PM
#2
Pro
Member Since: Feb 2021
Posts: 743
Received 384 Likes
on
239 Posts
2022 C6 of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
Not sure if I would trust AAA..... Seems to be an alternator issue since you were running and your voltage was dropping. Hook up a battery charger and let it eat. Now old school diagnostics was to fire up the vehicle and pull the positive wire off the battery. If it died, then it was the alternator. Cannot do that now though. Best thing to do now (I would anyways) is to charge it, crank it and run a multimeter on the battery to test for 14-14.6 voltage. That would tell you alternator is working or not. 12 or below would be running off the battery.
The following users liked this post:
GS-2013 (12-27-2023)
12-27-2023, 03:48 PM
#3
Retired & lovin' it!
First step should always be to check for error codes. If you don't have access to an OBD reader, any big box auto parts store will reads the codes at no cost.
Don't get stuck guessing & just changing out parts. Knowing the error codes will also give you a heads up if some dealer service dept. tries to scam you into unnecessarily replacing parts.
Don't get stuck guessing & just changing out parts. Knowing the error codes will also give you a heads up if some dealer service dept. tries to scam you into unnecessarily replacing parts.
12-27-2023, 05:31 PM
#4
Safety Car
Member Since: Aug 2017
Location: Etobicoke (Toronto) Ontario
Posts: 4,006
Received 1,779 Likes
on
1,139 Posts
Well, there's not much diagnostics you can do if the car was towed to the dealership and it's still there. Short of that (maybe pun intended), kind of sounds like your battery shorted out a couple of cells, for which the alternator could not possibly compensate. Or the +ve battery cable to the starter solenoid corroded enough to start arcing across, and finally failed enough so no more power to the electronics. And by fully dead, you mean no lights, horn, gauges, instrument sweep, etc?
The following users liked this post:
Lee Cromwell (12-27-2023)
12-28-2023, 11:19 AM
#5
Drifting
Ouch.....sounds like the battery is toast. If the car was dead, how did AAA test the battery, alternator, etc etc and diagnose them as good? Hmmmmm......
