G'day,

Could someone help point me in the right direction? I've got a 2003 Magna TJ with the 3.5L engine, converted for LPG (dual fuel). Had it for 1.5 years, been serviced approx every 6 months.

It's about a month late on its 6 month service. I booked it in for a service and checked the oil level - which was below 'low'. I topped it up back to full. The area around the oil filter and alternator looks wet from oil.

The last time I drove it, the battery light turned on. The brake light and "!" light also came on intermittently while driving. The next day, it would not start at all and the battery read at 7V.

To my understanding, the battery light indicates low voltage. If the car is running, then this indicates a problem with the alternator, is this correct?

Anyway, I still had to get the car to the garage for its service (and fix this new oil leak / alternator problem) but I couldn't start it. Tried jumpstarting but this didn't work. It made a feeble attempt but didn't start up.

Plan B was to swap the full battery from my house-mate's car, and use it temporarily to get across the block to the service garage. I stuck his battery in and tried to start my car. It started, then stalled straight away (which is common when starting directly to LPG on cold engine - but this was with petrol). I started it again, which almost worked, then I heard a strange mechanical sound that I can't really explain from the engine bay and it shut down. Since then, nothing appears to have power at all. No lights work, nothing on the dashboard at all - yet the loan battery still reads at about 12.5V.

I had a quick look at the main fuse board and couldn't see anything obvious, but this evening I will pull out each one and test with a multimeter to be sure.

Can anyone guess or tell me what's happened? Has the alternator blown some main fuse that protects the whole car?

Alternator light shows if the alternator is putting out any electrical power. Light on = not charging the battery.

"Strange mechanical sound" can be anything.

Did you connect the second battery the wrong way round, perhaps?

Hey MadMax, thanks for replying.

To clarify, does "battery light" = "alternator light"? The light looks like a battery.

I definitely connected the battery the right way around. The dashboard lights did come on the the car attempted to start, after all - but now there is nothing on after trying to start it and I haven't touched the battery since.

You may have blown the main fusable links. They are the big round ones at the front end of the engine-bay fuse box and are screwed in from underneath.

Thanks for the suggestions. It's started working again and I have no idea what has changed.

I bought a car battery charger and left the battery charging overnight. While it was out of the car, I had a poke around the engine bay with a multimeter looking for any problems. This included testing the links from the positive battery terminal to both ends of all the engine bay fuses (including the main ones vlad mentioned) and they were all fine. Also disconnected and reconnected the alternator.

The car started fine this morning, except now there is like a low pitched whining sound coming from the engine as it's running, and burning oil coming off near the alternator area.

When I topped up the oil, I overfilled accidentally by about 15mm. I'm going to drain out the excess tonight and try it again. Now that it starts I can get it to my mechanic.

When it was running, the alternator/battery light was not lit - so I'm stumped as to what caused the problem in the first place...

could have been a lose/dirty alternator connection and/or corrosion on the battery terminals.

Have you snapped your alternator belt?

Have you snapped your alternator belt?
Charge light would be illuminated if you have ..........