I have been havering problems with my car and its like bi polar it won't start then if I wait a little it will start back up and sometimes it will just shut off while I am driving idk what's wrong

Asked by Seeairah_3 Aug 12, 2015 at 01:48 PM about the 1999 Volkswagen Jetta

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

I replaced the battery already and it
shouldn't be the altinator because the car
still starts back up every time I just have to
wait a little and the check engine light and
battery light both come on when the car
won't start or shuts off randomly please
help!

5 Answers

189,455

Check the starter relay, idle control valve and throttle body may need to be cleaned. check all your electrical connections.

45,825

I have 2 questions, How old is your alternator and whats the km/Miles on your car? This sounds to me like your alternators regulator has probably wore out. I would tho also go threw all the main grounds and cables and check for breaks or corrosion. The main reason i think it stalls while its running is lack of power to maintain the car which is why i go directly to the alternator. If you have over 200k on the alternator it will probably look like mine did Brush-less and a ground in rut almost to the main shaft. The secondary for this is a bad ground. This can be from anyware from the starter to the ground points on the frame and engine, and even to the computer and main harness. If none of these are the issue have the main wiring harness checked because more often then not the jetta's had the main wiring harness get splits where all the wires come together. This means unwrapping all your wires from the dash all the way to the fire wall till to find out if a wire is broke or not.

I am not sure how old the altinator is and it has about 154,296 miles my dad tried using his tool thingy to check the computer but nothing came up

45,825

OBD1 tester only reads surface issues in a vw or Audi You need Ross Tech scanning software to properly diagnose it. You can probably find a dongle on amazon for about 16 -30$ then you just need a laptop and can download the software free on the rosstech site. one thing you can do is if your OBD2 has a voltage testor on it plug it into the car and monitor the voltage if you have a drop below 13.45 volts during idle its either a short or alternator issue.

It was the distributor output that was the problem it wasent sending a signal thanks for the answers

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