Hey, seems like a great forum. Unforunatly, I found you guys buy looking up posts that would be similiar to my problem. Tonight, I was driving along and the lights in the cab starting getting dimmer. Then the ABS light came on and the off-trac light came on on the dash. It still seemed to be driving ok, but I wasn't going too fast. When I went to give it gas it sounded kinda shotty, but it would eventually catch up with itself. I made it to my destination, but along the way the lights were pretty much out in the cab and the headlights started kinda flashing. I parked and figured I'd experiment and turned it off. The lights kind of regained power. I went to turn it back on nothing. Wasn't really turning, so I gave it a minute and called my Dad since he is kind of a ford guy. Got off the phone with him and tried to start it again. Started right away, but after about a minute or so the lights came on and this time the battery light came on. I figured it would be a good time to check the alternator so I stepped on the gas and the light went out. It revved kind of off again, but the light for the battery went out which makes me believe alternator isn't the culprit here. While it was idling it started going along the same process. I'm not a big electrical guy so I'm in the dark (literally). At this point I'm leaning towards the fact that I have an aftermarket head unit and subwoofer with an amplifier. It seems kind of weird that I haven't had a problem for the couple of months I've had them in though. The fact that a couple days prior I kind of noticed the car's lights dimming like they did. If I can't come up with anything else I might just take out the amp and see how things go from there. I was hoping someone might have some insight or know of a similiar problem. It's a 2000 Linc V6. I greatly appreciate anyone spending the time to read this and appreciate all the help and insight I can get.
2000 LS electrical problems?
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TheRebel
Dedicated LVC Member
battery or alternator. I say alt. because when you rev'd the battery light went off because you probably made just enough voltage to trick the computer to think you were charging the battery but it won't last long. I've heard a lot of stories on here where a bad alt caused problems like your having. Take a volt meter to the battery with the car idling and all accs off. You should get about a 14V reading. If lower than that the alt is bad. If you are getting around 14V, have someone rev the engine and make sure the voltage stays around that number. If it does then take your battery somewhere and have it tested. It should have about 12.6V reading with the car off but its needs to be load tested because you can be reading good voltage but still have a dead cell in it. I think the earlier LSs had some alt. troubles that were fixed after replacing it. Also how many miles do you have on it? Let us know what fixes it, but I'd look at the alt first.
decibels5
Dedicated LVC Member
Autozone or Advance will check them for free. Sounds like the alternator is giving up. Check both. and your cables too. Make sure they are tight.
doncorleone77
LVC Member
It's your alternator, I've got a 2000 LSV8 & mine did this off & on for a month or so & it drove me crazy. Turned out to be me alternator even though everytime I had it checked it seemed to be charging fine.
Yea, the more and more I roll it over in my head it's sounding like an alt prob. Fortunatly, the dealership still has it under a 50-50 warranty, so I'll just hit them up. I'm banking on that and hoping it won't hit me up as hard. Appreciate the replies I'll let you all know how it turns out.