94 Villager - Flickering Warning Lights (Brake & Battery)

The brake and battery warning lights (on my dashboard) have just started to flicker. They never stay on solidly, but flicker a little bit when I'm driving. When the car is idle, the lights stay dark. When I get to around 60mph, the lights flicker very dimly.

They also tend to flicker more when I have the AC on.


Can someone please help me figure out exactly what this might mean? I have a feeling its the alternator, but I'd to see of others share this opinion.

Thanks.

When reading your post before I finished I was already thinking the alternator myself. Have you had any charging issues at all? Also you can easily check it by disconnecting the battery while it's running.

Other thoughts that come to mind are poor grounds, or frayed or bad wiring from alternator to battery, and starter.

It's where I'd start.

It can be tons of things but I will have to go with altenator,battery,cables all in that order.

Thanks for the replies. I have some new information.

I had my alternator replaced by PepBoys yesterday (a bad starter installation last month led to the demise of my flywheel. I convinced pepboys that it also led to the problem this topic talks about).

But even with a new Alternator, my brake and battery lights still flicker.


Here is what I know.

The more I use my car, the more this happens. If my car has been parked for several hours and I take it for a drive, the lights will stay off for a while before starting to flicker.

The flickering starts off very slow and faint and builds up to the point where the lights are solid (brake and battery).

I drove about 2 miles just now. The flickering started very faintly and built up to the point where both lights were solid. I entered the BurgerKing drive through. My car was running, in park, and the air conditioner was off.
I put the AC on, and the break/battery lights immediately went out. (they were faintly flickering). I put the rear AC on, and these lights went out completely.
When I turned the AC off, these lights immediately came back on.

I sat parked with the AC on for maybe 10 minutes and the lights never began to flicker. I drove off, then after maybe 1/4 of a mile, the lights began to lightly flicker. They flickered more as my RPMs went up, then less as the RPMs went down.


I'm taking my car to an "excellent" (according to my cousin) electrical mechanic this weekend. Do you think he (or any good electrical mechanic) would be able to diagnose my problem based on the description I just posted?

Does this sound like a very complicated problem to any of you? Based on my description, what would you think it is. What would you do?

I don't have a lot of money and I'm hoping to get this fixed quickly and inexpensively. (I need the car for work).

Thanks in advance.