so I crank up the 4runner to have the abs light on, werid whining noise that does not go away after 10 seconds (i cut off engine after that) with the lights flickering. whining noise sounded like its coming from the cd player. start it up, same thing. cut it off...same thing blah blah. so after several start/cut off's, i decide to put up with it and just drive home. about a mile down the road, the lights get real dim, and the 4runner simply cuts off. several attempts at starting it up again fail. finally it starts and i drove home; abs light turns off, lights are on full power, check engine light comes on.

???????

ill run the obdII scanner tomorrow to get the code. buddy of mine is borrowing my scanner.

 

Sounds like a bad alternator but get the code # just to be sure.

 

yeap thats what ive been thinking. doesnt autozone check ur alternator for free?

how much am i looking at for a stock replacement?...however i think i want to upgrade because i have so many lights, and the possibility of a winch in the next few months.

 

sound like and alternator to me. the ABS thing could be coiencidence. I dought they are related.

 

When you drop below a certain voltage (ie alt is not charging and the vehicle will run off the battery only for a little while) the on-board computers do all sorts of whacko stuff.....dash lights up like an x-mas tree.