Miles per volt

[Hyperion]

The alternator decided to finally die in the Celica about 3 miles from home this morning, but as my bike is off the road and wifey had already left with the other car I decided to carry on and complete the 35 miles into work.
Not only did it make it into work on residual battery power, it also got me home again, complete with lights. So that's 70 miles and the volt meter is still well in the green.

So how many miles will an average car do without an alternator?

[Kiltie]

71

[jhfozzy]

Kiltie said:

71

[SS HSV]

Two years ago year I won a Classic 280SE Merc on ebay and went to pick it up from Chester with my mate in the car. My Holden Commodore SS had a failed alternator and I was waiting for one to come back the next day, but I had arranged to pick up the car with the old owner and my friend, so I was committed to go. I thought that as long as I could get there to pick it up, we could stop and charge the two cars on the way back pulling over at service stations to charge up when the voltage got low. I also took one of those power pack chargers, two sets of jump leads and a spare car battery and off we went.

Got as far as Hemel and the dashboard lights all went out Used the jump leads to get the car running but it wouldn't run on the spare battery unless it was connected so we swapped the battery over and started off again. I got another 50 miles and it gave up again. This time I tried to use the jump charger but it was flat within ten minutes. Ended up calling teh AA out who towed me to where the Merc was (service station) and we played swap the batteries about 8 times to get the bloody car home

How stupid I must have been to think that I can get a fuel injected V8 with 8 seperate coil packs, to Chester with a spare battery and a boost charger. We left at around 7am and got back at midnight