Halfords will check the output for you and the state of the battery.
Thanks Redhand. saw this comment earlier. was going to reply with the results.......
However........
Half way to Halfords it went wrong again
This time though as I was just chugging along at around 30mph in traffic I was able to see exactly what happened.
When I left home there was just a slight sign of a low battery but it fired up on the fourth roll of the engine. All seemed fine. I stopped on the way to pick the family up. Started her up again and she was on full power, no sign of any impending problem.
About half a mile down the road everything went dim, the usual list of malfunctions on the dash appeared, but the engine was still running. Luckily we were about 300 yards (sorry don't do metres!!!) from my eldest daughter's house and I managed to get it there with no problems. By this time everything was totally dim...headlights like sidelights. sluggish wipers, etc., etc.. BUT the engine was still running fine.
I let it tick over for about 5 minutes and then gave it some wellie...still fine...plenty of power but everything still dim to almost extinct.
Switched it off and now no power even to switch on the interior lights.
Walked home...freezing!!!!!
So where do I go now? I think it may be sensible to start with the battery. The sudden loss of all things electrical cannot be an alternator surely. As was mentioned by Wills in a previous post, it sounds like a dead plate in a battery. Can't do any harm anyway and at least I can recover it home, and then maybe I will do the alternator brushes too.
Cheers
Bob
Warming up with a nice cuppa
