Over the past few weeks, I've noticed slow cranking in the mornings on a couple of occasions. I didn't really pay much attention to it. One day last week, I started the truck and noticed that my digital display had switched to the default metric (CDN truck). I always keep the display on Imperial. (MPG makes more sense to me than L/100km). That suggested that the battery was low.

A couple of days ago, again, it cranked slowly, but did start. I only ran it for 5 minutes to the corner store. When I came back out...click...no start. It jump started fine, but definitely now had my attention.

I switched the display on my tuner to show volts. It varies between 14.6 and 12.4 with the engine running. To my rookie eyes, this looks like a bad alternator. I've verified the voltage with a meter at the battery with the engine running.

My truck's an '11. It has 45,000 miles on it.

My thought is that the alternator shouldn't be dead already.

Is there something else I should be looking at? I'd love to think that a $100 battery would solve my problem, but the low numbers suggest something else.

Suggestions, especially suggestions that might save me $500 are more than welcome.

PC

 

Take it to a parts store, they can load test the battery and alternator in the parking lot.