Problem...help?
 

Tonight I was on my way home when my headunit and airbag light came on. The headlights became dim so I pulled into a gas station b/c I thought the alternator was dying. Pull in the gas station and waited for the car to die. It didn't so I turned it off. I figured mabye it was just some kind of electrical glitch, so I went to start it, and the car struggled to start. Kinda like when the battery is dying. Couple of tries later and it started. Turned off the stereo which came back on and all the accessories. I then procedded to make the 15minute trip back home. The lights became very dim. I kept driving and made it back. I put the vents on high and you could hardly hear them..like they were on low. Also, when I would turn them on, the airbag light came on, then when I turned the vents off the airbag light turned off. Same deal with the foglights. When I got back I turned off the car. Tried to start it 2 times but didn't have the juice to do it. Just a ru, ru.......ru(starting sound).

I think its the battery since the car kept running under its own power. If it would be the alternator, the car would have died within 5 minutes of leaving the gas station. Right? Both the battery and alternator were not changed since I've owned the car. It has 115,xxx miles on it. I bought it with 99,xxx miles. Probably the orignal alternator. What do you guys think it is?

were the lights on the bottom of your gauge cluster diming in and out? Mine did that when i got the car, replaced alternator, problem solved.

no the lights on teh cluster weren't dimming. What dimmed was the headlights, but the turn signals operated at normal speed. Thats what has me questioning both items. Actaully if it would have been the alternator, it would have pretty much died quickly. Thats my experience with alternators, is once stuff starts dimming, you have minutes before the car dies.

Check your connections under the hood. Ensure the battery cables are tight (more than finger tight) as well as the nut on the top of the alternator holding the wires on.

i once drove half an hour on a battery alone in the infamous power hungry xt6 in the very arid battery killing phoenix arizona highway. it stuttered a lot but things worked.
one can never say from speculation what is wrong if its electrical.
my alt was dead but the wiring was bad too.
it was an 88 with only 80k on it.

Sounds like the alternator is the culprit. I had a very similar problem about a month ago. With mine everything was dimming and some warning light started to come on. When you rev the engine back up everything comes back. I took off the alternator the next day and had it bench tested. Turns out that it still worked, but the bearing was shot causing it to be hard turning under any load. Another way to tell if it is the alternator is there will be lots of black dust where the bearing is. If the alternator went all the way, the battery will be ruined as well. I recommend that you get the alternator bench tested at autozone. They do it for free. You can have you battery tested too. You wouldn't want to ruin a new battery if the alternator was indeed dead.

autozone is cool that they do that, but they misdiagnosed my alt. they said it was bad, and it may have been, but replacing it (almost $400 total) didnt fix the problem.
make sure you get multiple opinions.

Definitely always get a second opinion. You spent $400 on an alternator? Good God!

its like this. $350 for an xt6 alt from autozone, $115 core charge, + added cost of belts and tools and parts i didnt have.

edgo sent me the one from his trashed 5 spd but it got stolen right out of my locked xt6 in phoenix. perhaps a good auto sec. system might have prevented this....

re: if alternator is the issue
 

if the alternator is the issue and you need one, pm greenmarine. he has access to alternators that crank out a bit more juice and is cheaper than the ones from autozone.