Highest voltage put out by a alternator?

[george graves]

What's the highest voltage you see/hear of put out by a working alternator? (any make/model, not including 24v systems of course)...

What generally happens when a voltage regulator goes?

Thanks!

[nando]

mine does a pretty constant ~13.2v

[AndrewBird]

Should be no higher then 14V, but should be above 12V. If the voltage regulator is out, the voltage will increase with RPM's or just be higher in general.

[george graves]

Kinda what I wanted to know, you'll never see more than 17 volts on a car unless something is wrong? Correct?

And if you are seeing that high of voltage, you are going to have some prolbems passing too much current through some system, correct? Like blower motors, ecu's, fule pumps, ect... will get burned out??

[AndrewBird]

Exactly. Be sure to get that fixed QUICK! Computerized circuits like the ECU and ABS computer don't like high voltages.

[Nick325is]

When my voltage regulator went bad the interior lights would pulse at cruising speed. Definitly alittle distracting when you are driving on a moonless night.


-Nick