I was going to post this in Hybrid, but its not a Honda so I'm posting here, if it needs to be moved, go ahead.

I'm having problems with the electrical system of my WRX.
Last friday I was coming home from work, and the car was messing up, like the fuel was cutting up, I have an HKS turbo timer that also has a voltmeter. Sure enough, the car was running at 11volts, right off the battery. Luckily I was able to get close to home to an autozone. They checked the alternator, it was dead, annd of course its a Subaru, no one carries it .

I talked to the subaru mechanic at the dealer, he's friends with my brother. He told me he had one he took out of a car with 3k miles, as a warranty service, a pulley was making some noise and it was believed to be the alternator pulley, it wasn't, so it was in good condition and working.

So I put it on the car, now the car runs anywhere between 11.7v to 13.5v, not good, all this time, the car runs weird of course, the fuell pump is cutting on and off, and I have to be careful and drive it out of boost.

I took the car again to autozone, they checked the alternator, it is working. The battery I got 3 weeks ago. WTF!!!
I called the Subaru mechanic, he told me to check the battery, maybe when I ran the car with it, last week I fucked it up and now it's not charging, and it is sucking the energy from the alternator.

Another guy told me that this is bullshit. Can it be a bad battery? The car didn't want to start the other day, so I know the battery is low. I was told also that the voltage regulator inside the alternator could be bad, and that is why it doesn't stay at a constant voltage.

This is long as ----, but I need help, it's been a week of trying different things and no luck. I hate borrowing cars and not driving my own ----.

I'm at work, but when I get home I was going to take the battery out, and try with another one, from another car, or take it in to the parts store for testing. It almost makes me want to burn the car down. it's a 2002, but it is a mitsubishi alternator, maybe that is why it's not reliable , but the one on my hatch is from the factory

 

stupid...but do you have to polarize the charging system?

 

my guess is alternator or some kind of wiring issue.

 

I don't even know what that is

The alternator seems to be working, well according to the autozone test, but it could be the regulator