1996 neon charging questionthat to me has a strange

I have a 96 neon with a charging problem . I can start the car let it warm up its fine <drive down the road the battery lights up on the dash . if I pull over shut the car off the battery light goes out when I restart it. then its fine then eventualy the light comes on and I have to stop it again then its fine.It doesn't seem to care if the heater and headlights are on or not .

take a hand held volt meter with you and when light comes on, test voltage at batt. record it. shut eng off, restart and if light off, check voltage with eng running. comparw 2 readings. repost results bet u have bad alt.

I agree to check the voltage when it does it and see if it is charging. Also the PCM may have a code in it that may help. It can store coded like "Alt rotor open or short" and so on. It sounds intermittent and from what I remember the PCM controls the regulation on it. Could be an alt brush problem or even a PCM problem but the PCM controls the alt/bat lite so it don't sound like a PCM problem. Good luck , Ron

Checked it a while ago it did have a code stored in it #47 low alternator output and low voltage on battery.

#47 isn't a valid code on an OBDII system.

PXXXX with the X's being numbers is how the code will be formatted.

Once you find out the P code you can use this site

https://www.obd-codes.com/trouble_codes/

for generic pointers as to where to start looking.

I would pull the alt and have it tested on its own.
it could be bad, or the ecm could have a problem for charging.

If the alt checks out good, I would wiring in an old stand alone vr and call it good. Common fix. rather than spending a couple hundred on a new ecm just for charging.

Pulling the alternator out of a 96 Neon is a real PITA.

Read the codes, troubleshoot, then pull parts.

Start the engine and disconnect both sides of the battery and see what happens. Those are not alternators, they are AC generators.

For sure.

FYI,,, I think the early Neons have a battery temp sensor on them.
If its not plugged in the alternator does not change ,,,I found this out the hard way

Check the splice near the battery on the 10 gauge? red wire. As I remember its encapsulated in a piece of white or grey nylon near the battery.
Doug

You have to catch this one while it's failing. having it tested may not show a problem as the unit isn't warm enough. And per the others it's regulated by the ECM so now there is two possibilities, 3rd is the 10 ga splice mentioned,4th could be a battery cable / connection problem or could be a ground issue. going to have to troubleshoot it or throw parts at it till you get lucky

Do not pull wires off when running,it may spike voltage&kill the computer.voltage regulator is built into the computer.My bet is the alt.

If it's the original Alternator, it needs to be changed..then move forward

thanks for all the help guys in a strange twist drove it to work today ran fine their and back? I don't have a clue the car has about 60000 miles on it .we will see

Sounds more like an intermittent connection the wiring somewhere.