this one has got me wondering. once a week or so while driving my cel has started flickering and the radio momentarily shuts off and turns back on. a few minutes later the battery light comes on. shut the car off and restart it and everything is fine and dandy. cel is for high charging voltage.

got about 13.8 volts at idle, battery is a couple months old. had it load tested today. everything looked fine except the alternator was putting out about 75 amps. stock is 90 as far as i can tell.
my best guess right now is that the voltage regulator on the alternator is dying..i just don't how something like that is going to occasionally stop working. i've already ordered a new alternator. any opinions. and anyone who's changed the alternator on the v6..easiest from the top or out the bottom?

i thought the regulator was internal to the alternator, but yeah, the chiltons states the ecu controls it. i hope this doesn't turn out to be an ecu issue.

is it at all likely that a bad alternator can be causing the overvoltage? i now see that the v6 alternator is rated for 110 amps, not 90. apparently the i4 is rated at 90amps. mine is putting out roughly 75 so i'm well below that.

thanks for the help bad venge and dt. i'm going to pick up a used ecu tomorrow and see what that does.

well i got a 97 ecu from a scrap yard, couldn't find a 96 close enough to me. it hasn't run enough to spit out any cels. i have my egr blocked off so that one is guaranteed. only thing i don't like is the thing revs up to 2600rpm on startup and settles to a normal idle. a lot higher than i had earlier, but we'll see if it settles down. just kinda makes me cringe with the little oil pressure on startup.

i'm sure some of you know this, but just an fyi for swapping ecu's with the v6. 95 can only be swapped with 95. 96 and 97 are interchangeable. 98+ can only be swapped with 98 and up.