First, I sould say that I have done a lot of looking on here before posting this and I do believe that my problem is with my alternator. I guess I am just looking for confirmation that that's my issue. Two days ago I was about 40 miles from home and my battery light came on. I thought it could have just been a glitch or something because I just replaced the battery no more than three months ago. The light stayed on, but seemed to give me no mechanical trouble and I drove the 40 miles home without issue. However, yesterday I went to go to the fast food place about a mile and a half from where I live and on the way the battery light came on again and this time the ABS lights came on as well. When I was in the drive through I also noticed I had no power in my windows or my spoiler and the light on the spoiler light was blinking. For a second it was almost if all of the power in my car sort of flickered, like it was about it cut off but somehow saved itself. I immediately started driving home because I feared that my car would die. It ended up dying on me but thankfully I was right in front of my house and just pushed it in the yard. I tried jumping it off with no luck. Like I said, I have done a good bit of reading on here and think that it could be a problem with the alternator. I have also come across some posts that mention the belt could be slipping and that could be causing the problem. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

Sounds like a faulty battery ground cable to me, since you tried jumping it and that didn't work.
Measure across the battery terminals, 11.9 to 12.5 would be a good reading, if you see that then
try connecting one of the black jumper clamps to the engine and the other black clamp to the negative battery terminal.
If that gets it running, you should be seeing somewhere between 13.8 - 14.2 volts between the battery terminals, this would indicate that the alternator is working.
Time to clean the negative cable connection to the fender.

 

It would have been nice to know the voltage readings while all this was happening. That is exactly why I run a scan gauge type device just for events as this.

A newer battery doesn't mean it can't be defective. Also you need check your grounds as others have had trouble with them.

James

 

I plugged up a charger to my battery today and let it charge for a while and my car was then able to crank on its own. The battery light was still on, though, and it seemed like there was a bad bearing-like noise coming from somewhere around the alternator. Would this rule out a bad battery cable because it was able to start on its own?

 

Most likely the cables are good, sounding more and more like the alternator is going belly-up.

 

If it is the alternator going bad, wouldn't that mean that even if I got the battery completely charged, the car would still probably die on me again if I tried to drive it to the repair shop?

 

You can certainly measure the battery voltage with the now running engine, 13.8-14.2 volts means that the alternator is at least working.

 

If you have an Autozone or equivalent nearby, they will do a free alternator and battery check for you. But if you charge the battery and the batteery light comes back on while driving, it sounds to me like it is not charging which is generally the (more expensive) alternator solution.

 

I took it to one of the local auto parts stores and they checked my battery and confirmed it was the alternator. They ordered the new alternator and replaced the old one with it as well as replacing a bearing in the water pump that was causing that bad noise I was hearing. My car sounds so much better now, but of course after I picked it up from being worked on I noticed that the inside of one of my front tires has almost worn completely through. So now I'm just going from one problem to the next lol