Honda Prelude Forum - PreludeDriver.com

Hi new here and hoping to get some direction on what to do next. Replaced alternator about a month ago and charged battery to full charge, the batt. light went off and was running fine. Then my daughter in law was driving and told me the car started backfiring and running poorly with a bad smell like too rich or something? Went and jumped it, started fine, idled fine but when I started driving toward the house it started backfiring, no power and finally stalled. Put new battery in it and it drove fine to home. While the car was idling I pulled the positive cable off the battery and the car died telling me the alternator is shot again. Luckily its under warranty so that's covered. I don't get the alternator for 2-3 more day's. Oh and after I put the new battery in the batt. light stayed on all the way home secondly telling me the alternator needs replaced again so, the big question,,,, after I get the new alternator installed (with the new battery) what should I look for to prevent this again? Do I have a short somewhere that eventually leads to damaging the battery & alternator after it is driven for a month? maybe someone on here has experienced the same problem and can offer any advice, will be more than grateful. Thanks for bearing with the long winded story about a car that has become a thorn in my side.

I think it might have been the alternator that caused the problems and that replacing it will solve your issues. You can look for any obvious wiring problems, but it may have just been that your alternator wasn't charging and discharged the system.

When you install the new alternator, throw a multimeter on it and verify that it is pushing an acceptable range of volts back into the system.