Greetings all,

I previously posted this in "electronics" with no response so I moved it here..

My 1999 A4 quattro 2.8 v6 is having an intermittent charging problem, and before I just go ahead and replace the alternator I thought I'd run the symptoms by here in case it could be something else. A couple days a go while driving, the battery light came on and stayed on as I drove home. Battery slowly lost charge. The next morning I jumped the car, battery light was off and everything fine. After driving for about 20 minutes, the battery light came on and stayed on. It wasn't on long enough to lose charge, so after the car sat for about 6 hours, it started up, battery light was on and stayed on tip I got the car home. Today, I jumped the car again and the battery light was off. After running the car for a few minutes to charge it, I turned the car off and on a couple times, and after a couple starts (w/o jump attached) the battery light came on and stayed on. The fact that jump starting it seems to trigger things working properly makes me wonder if its some control issue rather than just a bad alternator, but then again i don't know what I'm talking about! Just wanted to run it by some people who know more about this stuff than myself before I go replacing the alternator and ending up stuck in the same situation!

Thanks for the help!
jeff