cig lighter battery charger

Unless that's the third alternator in 12 years you need to find out what's using them up so fast. A cig lighter booster wont do much. If your battery was only slightly drained and you left the booster running for an hour you might get a start out of it. Forget about it if the battery is dead. Even if you got a start out of it and proceeded to drive with the bad alternator you would not get too far. If you could take the battery out and get it fully charged and put that back in you might be able to get home with the vehicle. You could monitor the charging system from time to time with a VOM and perhaps get a hint as to when the alternator is about to fail, but that won't always save you either.

If your car uses the CS series alternator, you may be lucky that no more than

3 have been lost in 12 years. Those units did not hold up well at all, for a number of reasons. Heat got to them, the internal regulators tended to succumb due to this, and the bearings often went out. Clearly since the diode plate is inside the alternator, this can also be a source of failure with shorted or open diodes, no doubt aggravated by the heat and vibration.

Be sure that you have the right belt on that car. I found that some aftermarket belts were slightly shorter than the oem, which may have put too much tension on the alternator and water pump. Yes, they fit, but that may not be good enough.

There is an improved version and a kit to convert your old alternator to better cooling. Cant say if this solves the problem. Called "Iceberg".

A cigarette lighter charger could build up enough charge in your battery to get you to the garage, if the garage isn't far away. I would buy a regular 6-8 amp charger and put it directly on the battery if it were mine. Cost is little and attaching a charger is not rocket science.

Since a starter draws a few hundred amps and the accessory outlet probably has a 10 or 15 amp fuse, I can't see you getting the car started using anything plugged in there.

Not if used as a 'jumper cable' but it would probably work okay if you could charge the battery overnight and race to a nearby garage the next morning. If that alternator is not working, even a fairly well charged battery will soon fall to the level that systems will stop working. Not good to be on a crowded freeway when it goes below the workable level.

To answer your question, if it's one where another car's charging circuit provides the charging via lighter-to-lighter hookup, yes it would ultimately completely charge up your battery. But since your battery is completely dead, it might take some time to fully charge. PLUS, a caution about the charging car: newer ones will burn up their own alternator as soon as they attempt to charge a dead battery after a mere boost! Much better to do as another poster wrote, and get a cheap low-output charger. Luck, s

Now that you mention it, I used to own an 84 Fiero (bought new) that ate a number of alternators. The "dealership" mechanics had done some recall work and screwed up the bracket system...The brackets constantly worked loose, and soon the belt started slipping. I suspect that the alternator was torn between low output and big demand and gave up the ghost on a number of occasions.

My son and I pulled the engine and tranny and went throught the whole thing, reengineering as we needed to, and repairing the damage the dealership cretins had caused. It ran without problems, until said son cracked it up a couple of times.

It probably will work, if you give it PLENTY of time.

------------- Alex