Well I finally got around to getting two new battery's. Installed them this week, my check gauges light still comes on????? My voltage is 14 volts the same as the old battery's. any ideas as to find out what gauge to look at when the light comes on? I was thinking it was the battery's ....my battery cables are like brand new. Truck only has 40 K on it. Some one said check grounds? Where on the block?Yes the battery's are the original ones......I was going to start there......well looks like I'm battery shopping.
Thanks
Thanks for the info....as far as the lights staying on, you did not understand..... the check gauges light stays on after the truck is off. Not the head lights....On your lights staying on for a little while -
For my 08 it's set up so that if I turn the key off and then turn off the lights, they stay on for a short while and then turn off automatically.
That's so you can see where you're going at nite when you leave the truck.
Mine doesn't do that if you shut the lights off first, then the key.
The interior lights stay on a little irregardless.
Just a convenience feature.
On batteries, when disconnected they should show about 12.9 volts.
But with everything connected and running, your volt gauge should show about 15 volts.
I had cleaned the connections when I got my truck a month ago, but apparently not good enuf.
After reading that they need to be REALLY clean, I disconnected all the cables, and took a wire brush in a drill motor and really shined up the posts.
Then I took a small round steel brush in the drill motor and shined up the insides of the loops on the cables.
Also took apart all the little other wires and scraped all the connects to bright/shiny.
And took apart the body ground connections from the battery grounds to the inner fenders and shined those surfaces up good.
While tightening the battery cable bolts, I happened to notice one of the cables still wasn't quite snug on the post.
Took a sawzall metal blade in a vise grip and cut a gap between the ends - basically shortened the ends of the loops a little.
Then the cables cinched down really nice and tight.
Before that, I couldn't clear the Service message and had started getting the lightning bolt (same symbol as the startup heater light
that supposed to go off) and it stayed on.
After I did all that cleaning, the lightning bolt is gone (shuts off like it should when the heater cycle is done) and my volt gauge is 15 steady,
and I was able to get rid of the Service message (cleared codes and it went away and hasn't come back in 2k miles).
Get serious about your electrical connection cleaning, incl all grounds you can find, and I'd bet your problems will go away.
Good luck!
