Da Hail!
 

No, not about hail, but what da he'll happened?

Drove from work to home, about a mile drive that with the lights and traffic took about 10 minutes and it's about 86 outside, went inside, changed into different clothes and when I tried to start my car it reset the KAM.

Here's how it played out. Sat down, pushed in the clutch, turned tr key to start it and I hear these two Clicks coming from what I assume is the battery. Nothing lights up on the dash. Turn it to off, and turn it back to on and nothing lights up. Pop the good and look underneath, battery terminals look fine.

Go back inside, turn it to on, lights come on but traction control light is on and DSC is flashing. Shut it off, leave it for a moment, turn it to on and traction control is still on but DSC light is not illuminated. At the same time I look and see that my radio presets are reset as well as the settings and clock, and assume KAM was reset somehow.

Drive to play Ultimate, get in car two hours later and traction control light is off, same with DSC light. Da hell happened? I was figuring of getting a new battery anyway, should I get one now? Kind of worried with the warmer weather and going down to MO next month.

Could be the battery going or it could be the alternator. I would get them both checked to be certain.

Definitely going to get them checked today. I'm leaning more towards the alternator as my CD player has started to randomly skip, which I believe is a result of the alternator not working properly. Will pick up a multimeter and get it worked out.

1) It happened again.

2) I think it's my alternator.

This morning it did the flashing dsc light and traction control again, but the car didn't die. This evening at 5 it died. Turned the key to on and car died. Had to wait about 5 minutes until i could turn the car on again and same thing, dsc light flashed and traction control light was on. Did the lock-to-lock, turned key to off, and then started car no problem.

Went home and tested with multimeter, voltage without the car on was 12.6, with car on was around 13.7. So me thinks I need a new alternator.

Already ordered the alternator but I don't think that was the actual problem, still good to have as it seems it was weak.

What seemed to be the problem is that the bolt that was used to tighten the negative battery terminal was a little loose. When I say little I mean little to the point where you had to jiggle the connector a little bit to pop it off of the battery, so that MIGHT have been the issue. Tightened it down on 06/03. Also it looks a little rusted so I ma replace the bolt.

You need to clean off your terminals. Honestly there are several different methods, i prefer the wire brush with a little bit of cola on it. Sounds odd, it does work though. Get them all nice and clean and tighten everything down. There were issue's many members were having with their terminal being weak and not tightening completely around the shaft. Many people will suggest that you replace them both just to be safe. It's not a MUST, but it could help. Have you gotten the new alternator yet?

It's at FedEx today so I'll be picking it up and installing this weekend.

I did clean the terminals a couple weeks ago, just used baking soda and water, and thought I had tightened the bolt down enough, so either I did and it's coming loose from the rust and I just need to buy a $1 piece of metal, or I just didn't tighten it down enough.

I don't understand; why didn't you have the problem diagnosed first? No sense in ordering a replacement part if, in fact, that part was not the problem. Anyway, good luck.

New information brings about new dignosis, reason why I didn't check the terminal connection is because I had assumed that it was securely connected since I just did it, which I shouldn't assume but I did. I thought that would be apparent.

Anyway doesn't matter, I have a new alternator which I didn't need, but wanted anyway.

In all reality if you can afford it, It not really a bad thing to change out parts before they die. It helps keep the car at a better level of health if you really think about it.