Q: Car is totally dead. No sound or anything. Even power locks don’t work.

asked by on December 25, 2017

Car was working fine during the day. Went to drive to work and noticed a warning light that looked like a battery on, still continued to drive when I noticed lights in car were fading away and the head lights were dimming, and other warning lights came on. Went home and parked the car, next day tried to start it and it’s completely dead. No noises at all when trying to start the car, power locks don’t work either. It has a fairly new battery that was installed back in July. I have a video of what was going on the car when I parked it before it died. Could be the ground connection?
My car has an automatic transmission.

Alternator Replacement $166.62 - $1297.14 Get a Quote

It sounds like you may have a weak battery, a failing voltage regulator or failing alternator. As you may know, the alternator charges the battery while the engine runs by generating amperage and recharging the battery while the engine turns the alternator pulley. The voltage regulator is a unit that regulates the charging of the battery by the alternator and maintaining a certain amperage while the engine runs. When the alternator is not working properly, this may result in the battery quickly losing charge and the car losing all power. You may also notice a whining sound as a result of the bearings inside the alternator begin to fail. I would recommend having an expert from YourMechanic come to your location to diagnose and inspect your charging system.

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