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Battery light in your car should go on for several seconds when you start the engine. This means that
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everything is okay and the battery is working. But if this battery light comes on your dash just when
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you drive, it means there is something wrong with the charging system. What is the charging system,
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and why can you see all these charging system fault messages and all kinds of other error
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messages that are connected with the battery or alternator? First of all,
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you can see this because of the battery. So the 12V battery or maybe even auxiliary battery may
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be faulty if you have auxiliary battery in your car. If they are faulty, if the voltage is low,
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if they don't take the charge from the alternator, you will obviously see the battery light. You will
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see some error messages, and actually, your car may glitch in any possible way. You can see all
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the error messages in the world if this happens. Secondly, this can be the bad alternator. If your
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alternator doesn't give enough charge to your battery, you will sooner or later see the battery
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light. Also, it means that the alternator may not work absolutely, and your battery is powering all
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the car now. In this case, you will see the battery light, and this will mean that your
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battery is going to go dead very soon. Also, one thing why alternator may not be working is because
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the alternator belt may be broken. The alternator belt, the serpentine belt, or drive belt is the
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belt that rotates alternator, AC compressor, and several other parts in your car, and if
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it's broken, your alternator will just not be able to produce any power at all, and everything that
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your car consumes will come from the 12V battery. In this case, you will also see the battery light.
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Another problem is the voltage regulator. This is the small part of your alternator,
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and it regulates the voltage that goes to your battery and to all other parts of your car,
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all other electrical equipment of your car. If the voltage regulator is broken, it may not send the
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proper voltage to the battery and may not charge the battery, and as a result, you will see the
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battery light and maybe even several error codes, error messages on the dash. Two other things that
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you may check when you see the battery light is the connection in your battery. The connections
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may be dirty, this and this one, or they may be loose, so maybe you need to take a 10mm wrench
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and fasten these connections. If they are loose, fasten them. Also, in the negative connection,
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you will have the ground cable, and you need to check if this ground cable is okay. Check
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if this ground cable is corroded, or maybe it's broken, and this may lead to low voltage problems
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in your car, and nothing will work properly. So what literally happens when you see the battery
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light in your car, it means that the power comes not from the alternator but from the battery. One
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of the most common consequences of this is that your battery will give away all the power it has,
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all the juice it has, and it will remain dead. So if you see this battery light and it's on the
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dash, it's very possible that in one or two hours you will have no power in the battery,
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and your car will not start, it will not work. You will need either a new battery or to check
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what's wrong with the charging system with the alternator before you continue driving. So what's
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with the DIY solutions? First of all, you can try turn off the car for one or 2 minutes because this
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battery light may be just a glitch, and when you turn it back on, everything will work. So
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this is number one solution you can try: turn off the car, wait for 1-2 minutes, turn on the car,
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and see if this battery light goes off after you turn on the engine. The second DIY option
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is to use a multimeter and measure the voltage of the battery when the car is off and when the car
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is on. So when the car is off, it should be 12.5 volts approximately, and when the car is on, the
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alternator should send about 14.3 to 14.7 volts into your battery to charge it. And of course,
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if you see the battery light on your dash, you shouldn't start the long journey. If you do this,
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there is a high chance that in one or two hours you will have a dead car without any power that
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you can't start. It can't work even if you start it with jump-starting, it just will be dead.
