Zane Hanson

Thanks, today I checked the battery with a multimeter and it was not charging when the car was running so I got a light and tested the alternator, the red cable from the battery is fine but the other cable has 2 contacts and one of them isn't working. so I am going to pull out the alternator and give it to someone to test it properly, should be able to either fix it or get another one depending on what they say. I didn't put the alternator in myself, I havnt had the car very long but I can tell that the alternator is very new. So I'm not sure about the regulator.

Thanks I'll try that, I just came back out to the car after it died 3 hours ago, I havnt charged it again or anything and it started no problem at all, yet 3 hours ago it didn't have enough power to start it.

I have a 1996 E39 523i, the battery keeps draining and I'm not sure why. It has a new alternator and a new battery, when the car is running the old battery was reading 14V so that rules out the battery and the alternator. It was fine for the last few weeks but now it drains very fast, last night it was fully charged then today I drove it to school then to work and then home which are all only 5 minute drives from each other, when I pulled into my driveway and parked everything started dieing including the dash lights turning off and the engine trying to stall but then the engine kicked up revs to keep running with the alternator. When it has died and I try to use any power there is a clicking sound from behind the dash, I'm not sure if this is normal or not. It was already doing it with the old battery which was 6 years old so I got a new battery yesterday and it is still doing it but now the battery dash light is also on which it wasn't with the old battery, I may be able to run it on a diagnostic tool tomorrow. Any thoughts/help on what it could be would be much appreciated *SOLVED* Turns out my new alternator had a faulty regulator but it is all fixed now