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I've owned this vehicle since 2007 as I had bought it off of a lease return from the dealer picking it up at auction.
I've been having a little bit of electrical flickering with the lights for some time now. It don't matter if the headlights are on or off if the blower motor is on or off heat or air-conditioning either. Interior lights on or off it don't matter either.
I get kind of a Flicker and it's not occurring all the time but enough to notice whether the car is warming up or warmed up or cold.
I'm not quite ready to run at it yet I'm just throwing it out there to see if anybody has seen this issue before and so I can start planning and brainstorming.
Alternator is good it was replaced probably five years ago but this is been going on for some time so I do not believe it's alternator. With the scan tool hooked up it shows the vehicle is charging properly.
If I put the rear window defroster on it gets a little bit of a draw the same way mentioned above as well and if I turn it off the draw goes away as well.
The only electrical issue I've ever had was down in the passenger side floor panel where the wires like to melt for the rear window defroster which I fix that quite a while back after doing some searching on the internet which led me to YouTube where I found plenty videos about it. I used proper wiring, good size.
I did not put any fuse in when I bypassed that plug harness and all of the other wiring in that plug harness was good as well afterwards when I closed it up.
Sure there has to be a starting point for testing something somewhere regarding this issue. If there's anything I can do testing wise with a multimeter, lab scope, oscilloscope as well to check for any minor glitches anywhere I'm open for that because I'm always trying to learn using the oscilloscope since I'm a rookie in the oscilloscope Arena.
Once again thanks in advance for any replies answers or input that I get regarding this.
Its 1a.m. in the morning right now and I just picked this car up from the shop where I had to take the tires in because the aluminum rims kept losing pressure so I had to get them wire brushed down and coated that way the front tires would hold air pressure.
That's something I couldn't do at home efficiently being that I didn't have a tire machine so I had to Source it out and with my wallet $49 lighter for 2 tires the air pressure is now holding.
seen it on gms. its most likely the alternator. unplug it and see if the flicker goes away. ive seen it where headlights will flicker especially on the vans. they had a bulletin out on them
Thanks I'll check the TSB's under electrical and see what I can dig up that'll save me time. IF it turns out to be the alternator it has a lifetime warranty. Time to do some digging.
Well found 1 TSB that applied to Remy alternator's and sadly my vehicle wasn't affected. As far as I can tell with the marker marks they use when the vehicle is new at the factory are still present.
It also has a Bosch alternator. I guess some more testing and digging will be in order. I'll do some more digging online and try to check some other forums to see if I can find anything there.
I would also say the alternator or at least the alternator connections are the prime suspect, the alternator B+ wire carries a lot of amps so any bad connection will cause arcing and flickering. I don't know about US GM alternators but some European GM ones have rubber mounted alternators that have a separate earth ground between the alternator body and the cylinder block.
" We're trying to plug a hole in the universe, what are you doing ?. "
(Walter Bishop Fringe TV show)
Last edit: 8 years 2 months ago by Andy.MacFadyen.
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