Svoboda
New Member
- Joined
- March 23, 2011
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Fishers, IN
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2005 XLT Sport
Will preface by saying I've got a 2005 XLT with 91k on the clock. I bought it in February of 2011 at 72k. Sometime in March, it had a charging system issue so I took it to Sears to get a new battery. After swapping the battery, Sears couldn't get it to restart so I had to have it towed to a Ford dealer and they replaced the electronic throttle body.
Explorer ran fine up until February of this year when I started getting the dreaded "Check Charging System" error along with battery light and it ended up dying along the side of the road. Long story short, I was forced to pickup a Duralast alternator at AutoZone (Sunday night and 3 hours from home) and swapped it. Got me back on the road, no errors, thought everything was good.
Fast forward to this weekend. Driving this Saturday, the "Check Charging System" message and light returned. Pressed my luck thinking I could make it home and it ended up completely dying on the highway. Being 2:30am, we tried jumping it but it didn't seem to hold a charge so I grabbed a hotel room. The next morning, we took a battery charger out to the truck and let it charge for 20-30 minutes. It held a charge long enough for us to get it off the Interstate and get it to a truck stop. Once there, charged it for another 30 minutes and then fired her up, the message went away.
Drove it home (90 miles) and then to work this AM, again with no light. Get in it this evening and fire it up and the error/light is back. Having nothing better to do, I drove it over to Sears and had them test the battery. The notes on their diag said 12.3v, 19.8 amp and diodes tested good. The tech said it was the alternator. Checked belts, bolts and terminals and everything was tight and no corrosion. Do you think the alternator went bad already? Thinking of just going to Ford and getting an OEM part. Thoughts?
Explorer ran fine up until February of this year when I started getting the dreaded "Check Charging System" error along with battery light and it ended up dying along the side of the road. Long story short, I was forced to pickup a Duralast alternator at AutoZone (Sunday night and 3 hours from home) and swapped it. Got me back on the road, no errors, thought everything was good.
Fast forward to this weekend. Driving this Saturday, the "Check Charging System" message and light returned. Pressed my luck thinking I could make it home and it ended up completely dying on the highway. Being 2:30am, we tried jumping it but it didn't seem to hold a charge so I grabbed a hotel room. The next morning, we took a battery charger out to the truck and let it charge for 20-30 minutes. It held a charge long enough for us to get it off the Interstate and get it to a truck stop. Once there, charged it for another 30 minutes and then fired her up, the message went away.
Drove it home (90 miles) and then to work this AM, again with no light. Get in it this evening and fire it up and the error/light is back. Having nothing better to do, I drove it over to Sears and had them test the battery. The notes on their diag said 12.3v, 19.8 amp and diodes tested good. The tech said it was the alternator. Checked belts, bolts and terminals and everything was tight and no corrosion. Do you think the alternator went bad already? Thinking of just going to Ford and getting an OEM part. Thoughts?
