Our 2014 T&C is doing something odd,
a. the battery light comes on when started
2: the fog lights won't come on
Quick rundown, replaced the battery about 8 months ago, my wife mentioned the battery light was so I tested the normal suspects. Battery was 12.24 resting after a cold night, alternator was putting out 14.17 pretty consistently. No actual battery issue. THEN, she mentions her fog lights wouldn't come on. Sure enough, they will come on and then go right back off and won't turn back on. Light in the dash comes on and goes off with them so probably a switch issue. Not my favorite thing to test but wondering if a) and 2) are correlated or just a coincidence.
Any thought? Did I miss anything?
Do you have a load tester to test the battery? My wife's Pilot had a battery issue that wasn't obvious at first glance. Voltage across the terminals was perfect, but as soon as you put the load tester on, it was obvious it was shot. That solved the Christmas tree on the dashboard, along with the "Braking System Malfunction" error.
Alternatively, can you get a charger on it? Given the age of the battery, I wouldn't expect it to be shot, but I've had good luck starting by troubleshooting the battery and then working from there.
Just some random thoughts...
Factory fogs will not come on with the high beams on. Is it possible to start the car with high beams on (which should mean the fogs are not on) then when you turn off the high beams, do the fogs come on? Will the fogs stay on?
I'm not sure what this tells us. Just curious.
Or, fogs come on then quickly go off. If you switch to high beams the fogs would then be off for sure. Does switching back to low beams then initiate the fog lights again?
Is this one of those with two batteries? It will have a little mini battery next to the main one in a T&C.
Another possibility is if it has a current sensor in the negative battery cable terminal that is going bad/was left unplugged/got damaged.
It sounds like it is going into load shedding.
One battery
High Beams aren't on
Dont have a load tester, on second thought I may have one
Another tidbit;
If you shut it off and restart it the battery light doesn't come back on. No other change
Opti
SuperDork
12/26/22 10:05 p.m.
Im going to make the obvious guess and say if the connections are good at the alternator and battery, its probably an alternator. Ive seen the odd PCM failure on these causing goofy issues, but normally its an alternator.
Try to test alternator or run it to a parts house to check it, when the light is on. I bet it fails.
Soooo, to finish this off my wife mentioned that her key fob was acting weird. That's right, the van was warning that the battery in the key fob was worn out. The fog light was a bad ground so it was easily fixed.
P3PPY
Dork
1/21/23 2:58 p.m.
chandler said:
Soooo, to finish this off my wife mentioned that her key fob was acting weird. That's right, the van was warning that the battery in the key fob was worn out. The fog light was a bad ground so it was easily fixed.
Mark that under "TIL" and "today I will pass along that information"
