My dad’s car wasn’t starting. It has a new battery (only a few months old) but he’s been able to get it started by jumping it and it’ll work. He went to Autozone to check it out and they said the alternator is bad and gave us this print out.

I have a new alternator on the way that I can install myself, but dad wants to go see his grandkid play piano on Friday. It’s about 35-40 miles one way. Wondering if y’all think that’s doable and if this actually does sound like an alternator issue? It’s a 2011 Nissan Altima 2.5.

I also have access to a trickle charger I can use to charge the car overnight.

Bad diode causes a ripple issue, you can check this with a meter. Alternator will charge fine, but basically the diode is allowing a draw to happen because it’s allowing the voltage to flow the opposite direction when off. Wouldn’t recommend driving it with a bad alternator as who knows what it could do next, but theoretically he could. If you’d like to verify with a meter if it is a bad diode there’s some videos out there explaining this. Also those alternators are not super fun to replace.

The ripple voltage isn’t really an issue, not sure why that got flagged.

The voltage regulator inside the alternator failed. This typically leads to undercharging of the battery.

The loaded voltage is the real issue here, not the ripple. 12.7 loaded is akin to not charging under load. Realistically it is, but just barely, loaded non charging I’d expect it to be lower, like 11.9-12.3. If the alternator is accessible, I’d try cleaning and tightening both connections (one on either end) of the big wire coming off it, and then seeing what the voltage is with the headlights and blower on full.

Sheet says bad voltage regulator, some alternators have an external regulator, be careful of this