the charge light has come on on my disco 200tdi, it is dim on tick over and gets brighter as the revs go up. i have done some searching and checked the battery voltage its 12.8v and 14.5 (if i rember right) with engine running. put a clamp meter on the output from alternator its producing 5.8amps on tick over when it rev it up this drops to 3 or 4 amps. i put a jump lead on the earth terminal of one of the batteries ( it has 2) and clamp it to the engine thinking if it was an earth fault the light should go out, but it didnt.

at this point i would normally just buy a new alternator and try it, but batteries were flat about 2 months ago and wouldnt charge plus the charge light stayed on all the time even when i took keys out, so i replace the alternator then with a brand new one.

and ideas of what to try next would be a great help.

take the alternator to an auto electrician and have them bench test it

that mite be an idea, i will try and get a price for some one to bench test it,

this problem only occured after i used my winch to pull a car out of a ditch, as it came on the next day. that is the first time the winch has been used sine i have owned the car.

is the standard 60amp alternator i have on my 200tdi big enough to charge my 2 batteries and use the winch.

surley if it used to much power is should just flattern the battery not cause a fault wit alternator??

quick thought, i did leave the engine on when using the winch, thinking i would use a bit of power would be a good idea to keep alternator charging. makes sense to me. however is this correct as i have never used a winch before???

i do.

Did you solve this problem?