No charging but no battery light?

[Nosser]

Thursday on the way to work idle began to fall and after stopping briefly wouldn't restart. Battery light never came on. Tested and charged battery on a parts store charger and limped it home on the battery. Battery tested fine and took charge with no problem. During the whole drive home battery light never came on, engine dies in my driveway.

Pulled alternator Sat, ground strap is very grungy/corroded but solid. Tested alternator at Autozone, showed as bad (no suprise). Re-tested and charged battery, installed rebuilt alternator.

Car starts, runs fine. Drive around town, upon return home car dies in the driveway. Again, battery light never came on. I searched and the only similar post I found seems to point toward bad alternator ground and I have already ordered a replacement. Anyone know of anything else that would keep the battery light from coming on when the car is clearly not charging?

[DaveSmed]

Does it come on with the key on, engine off?

[smonkbmw]

sounds dumb but replace the bulb for the battery light.

[Nosser]

Nope, not the bulb. It does come on in the accessory position, but goes out as soon as the car is started.

[netcsk]

Make sure the casing of the alternator is grounded! The light wont come on if the alternator does not have ground. I went through this.

Ahh. I see you ordered one. If it doesn't fix it then I'm not sure.

[Nosser]

Great, that is the confirmation I was looking for. Well, new ground cable goes on this afternoon so hopefully that will do the deed. A healthy charging system should put out 13.5V across the battery terminals, right?

[Nosser]

Just wanted to close this out in the hopes someone down the road will find this if they have a similar problem. Yup, ground cable was the culprit, and as mentioned above you will not get a batt light if you lose alternator ground. Charging at a steady 13.8V now!

[george graves]

good to know