brought my truck home the other night. and the next day the battery was practicully dead.

i put the key on to wait for the wait to start light to go off and the V gauge read 9 v.
the as soon as the heater relays shut-off it went up to 11 v.

the truck barely cranked over. so i got my other truck and jumper cables.

put the key on again same as above. it was at 11 v.

heaters went off and the volts went to 12.5 to 13 volts and the truck practicully fired right up.

then the volt gauge stayed at about 12-13 volts for a minute or two then finally came up to 14-14.5 volts and the lights were flickering the dash lights and headlights.

so i hooked up my scan tool and this is what i got!!!

at idle the load value % would jump from 12.1% to 12.5% and when my lights would flicker/dim and the volts gauge on the truck would drop and the tach would drop. it would go down to 11.7%. that was all in idle. yea the headlights dim and brighten even at speed.

Load Value @ full throttle is 50.5%

Load Value @ 55mph is 24.3%

also it tells me that the engine is not running.
coolant temp is -40 degrees

when i had my other 97 dodge hooked up at a shop's big scanner it too said that, that truck was not running and the coolant was at the same temp. is there a reason for this that two different trucks would do this after the truck is fully warm??


is there a reason its telling me its not running and that the -40 degrees coolant temp?? and its on two trucks and they both have lights that flicker but the other 97 dodge that i didn't describe up here the lights will totally shut off for a bit and then come back on and if i floor it on that one they come back and then off and so on.

thanks