# Is 13.4 too low?



## wwolf771177 (Jul 19, 2007)

so my girlfriends car has been having battery issues. It always dieing so i checked the voltage while the car was on and it had a low reading so to my knowledge the alternator is bad...everyone tells me it should be above 14.0. Anywho i told my girl and her brother took the alternator to autozone to test and they said its fine....i dont know why he took out the starter and autozone said the starter is bad...wtf does the battery have to do with the starter....oh well so he switched out the starter and now everytime it starts it makes a horrible metal sounding noise. everytime ive changed a starter i never heard that.

so back to the subject in hand. so the car has been working well for like a week cuz he father put a "new" battery but today her battery died again. So i went to give her a jump start but before i did the battery tested 5.0 which i know is extremely low. after it turned on and was running i tested it again and it was at 14.1 then wasw slowly dropping and stayed at 13.4.

so is 13.4 good ( i doubt it )


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## smj999smj (Jan 1, 2006)

Yes, it's good. A properly charging system should be between 13.2 and 15.0 volts. Make sure the charging system is tested with and without loads "on" (ie high beam headlights, A/c, etc.). Perhaps you have a parasitic draw on the battery when the car is not running?


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## wwolf771177 (Jul 19, 2007)

I also wanna check the cables cuz I smelled some electric stuff from the engine bay. Ill do the test with the lights on. I did test it before with the lights off and when.I turned on the lights it wanted to shut off.


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## rogoman (Dec 16, 2004)

wwolf771177 said:


> ..oh well so he switched out the starter and now everytime it starts it makes a horrible metal sounding noise. everytime ive changed a starter i never heard that.


The rebuilt starter may not have been reassembled correctly; the starter solenoid uses shims for proper pinion gear throwout. The shims may be missing.

Return the starter to the auto parts store.


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