My 95 Altima got rear-ended a few weeks ago by a Ford Explorer. My car's damage is fixable. The driver side rear light was crushed along with the sheet metal around it. In fact, I have spent the past two weekends to get the car back to a much nicer looking shape. The only remaining job is to repaint the damaged part.
However, I do have a little sticky problem with the electricity system. Since the accident, my dashboard metering light is gone and so are all the meter functions. I could jump start my Altima but it won't stay in charge. In a few engine startup, I can use up all the power stored in the battery. It may sound like either battery problem or alternator problem. However, battery was replaced about 6 months ago. Alternator was dealer-replaced from a brand new alternator about
6 years ago due to a faulty alternator. The total milage on my Altima is only 46K miles.My questions:
- Could it be loose wire somewhere that goes to the dashboard meters?
- Is there a fuse box, or set of fuses, I can check for dashboard meters?
- Since the impact was not big, and there was no airbag deployment, I don't think the accident caused the electricity failure. Could it be a shorted wire to cause burnt fuse somewhere? My cursory checkup under the hood does not find a single burnt fuse. Are there other fuses under dashboard?
- Even if it was fuse problem, why would it impact alternator's charging? Thank you very much! Bob