DinViesel

Recently did footwell lights and after install car battery lights came on and went away. After a couple of days the car died so I jumped it and had no problems for 3 weeks.

After 3 weeks had same issue so i jumped the car but this time it died 5 minutes later. Very little to no throttle and I had power but after shutdown and turn on, car wouldn't crank. Opened the hood and the positive terminal had melted some of the wire due to a short or something else. The melting is not severe but the cap had some melting along with the covering for the wires. The wires themselves seem to have not been contacted from the melting and the fusible link/fuses seem good.

Checked the battery with voltmeter just to confirm battery was not the issue and readings showed that the battery was not being charged so the voltage was dropping to 12 and below. Could it still be the cable from the battery to the alternator or is the alternator for sure the problem and how can I check to find out? An if it is the alt what killed it only have 70K miles?

What caused the short? My wiring for the footwell led's was solid but it is possible that the glovebox ground where I wired the lights was not properly re-inserted.

RickyDgmZ

iTrader: (1)

Re-check your wiring. I'm going to assume that your vehicle was fine before you installed the lights. Those lights could be drawing current from the battery while it's off which is causing the battery to die. Your battery should be about 12.64 volts and while on the Alternator will bump it up to about 15 volts. Again re-check your wiring. It seems that's your issues.

Flakman

I agree with RickyDgmZ. If something strange happened right after install, undo and see if the problem persists. If it goes away, then check what was installed. That should be the first thing to be ruled out, especially since it was an electrical component. Was it installed with a switch and relay, its own switch only, or connected to come on with the other interior lights?