2005 VW Beetle 2L - Alternator not charging - Melted fuse box
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- 2005 VW Beetle 2L came in on the tow truck with a dead battery. Car would start with a boost buy die as soon as you pulled the booster off. Alternator wasn't charging. Always need to check things before just throwing an alternator at it! Sometimes it's hard to check the field coil wire. Especially on modern computer controlled alternators. Those will usually set a code or you can check things in live data. At the very least put a test light (incandescent) on the main charging cable!
The battery fuse box was melted. Turns out to be a very common problem. When I googled it to try and find what this fuse box was called all I saw were pictures that looked EXACTLY like this car! The fuse box costs $150 so some people move the alternator cable directly to the battery. It'll no longer be fuse protected but then a lot of older vehicles didn't have fuse protected main alternator cables... Not really the end of the world but also not something we'd want to do as a shop. We replaced the fuse box. Out replacement box didn't come with fuses so we also had to order a new alternator fuse. Something to keep in mind!
Anytime you have anything like this you always want to try and find out why it happened and check the repair to make sure it won't happen again. After installing, found that the wire was still getting smoking hot. Literally smoking... Ideal would have been to replace the entire alternator cable but customer didn't want to pay for all that. Only wanted to stretch out another year out of car.
I went through doing voltage drop measurements to check where the bad connections were. Initial voltage drop from battery positive to the alternator itself was 650mV. This is HUGE. The wire got up to 300F after only a minute of running. Traced the main problem to be oxidization of the copper wire. Especially between the cable and the terminal crimp. Opened the crimp, cleaned everything really well and reinstalled. Got everything down to 160mV at 80+ amps current draw. Would've liked a little less however the wire only heated up 5*F compared to the other wires after running for half an hour. Customer has had no problems in the week they've had it since.
If you can't do the perfect repair then you try to do the best repair you can!
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I had this problem on a 2005 VW Beetle. I cleaned electrical connections and replaced the fuse box. Second box melted. I removed the wire to the alternator, soaked it in a citric acid. I reinstalled the same wire after checking the resistance on it before and after the acid. To make sure I never had the problem again I installed a buddy wire,(two wires). Still have the car, no issues with this problem.
I learn so much from your troubleshooting methods, I didn’t realize auto mechanics needed to know so much DC electrical. Keep the videos coming! Thank you
@Hammond Jones Thanks! That's very kind of you to say. I genuinely like working on cars but I definitely like electrical and diagnosing the most!
I am riding a 2011 Beetle in Korea
I have similar symptoms to my car, but I'm a student, so I'm afraid to fix it because I don't have much money.
I am not good at English, so I cannot understand all the videos, but it was helpful to some extent
Same issues with my Seat Leon, this helped loads, cheers fella 🙂
@mikeheale Hey, sorry for the late reply. Glad you got your car sorted!
Thank you so much for sharing!! That’s a brilliant repair!
@wilsonFYJ Thank you for watching!
Excellent job.
@john coccio Thank you!
Thanks for the help
Perfect video
Couldn't you put a new clamp or you can't get that size? Im talking about the one in tha fuse box you cleaned up. My wife has same problem on her beetle. Its way too much for harness and was going to change alternator but as i saw your video thats not always the problem. Something as small cleaning a wire and clamp go a long way. Thanks for the video and keep us posted on any updates!
Alternator wiring harness for these are around $300
@Kenneth Ritchard I figured about as much. I don't love doing splices in heavy gauge wires. Sometimes you have no choice but in this case we opted to clean the original harness up as much as possible rather than spending money on half repairs. It's been 6 months or so and no problems so far!
I had a new alternator wire custom made for under $20 at a wire shop, and then swapped that out in the existing harness. It works great and far better than VW OEM junk.
The o.g. alt cable is corroded and undersized. Needs replaced.
Italia. 220 euro alternatore.