Was driving home on late Saturday night with family in car. The car is in good condition, almost like new with on the clock maintenance record. Anyhow on the highway the dash lights started going crazy and i lost all that was powered, including power steering and power brakes. The engine was still working though but when I floored it, it would rev up but the car would not move much. Then the dash lights came back on and the sh-awd and battery icon were flashing. I had a few warning messages too but I was too busy to read and was trying to pull to the side of the freeway. I came to a halt and the engine shutdown immediately. I lost power to everything. Car wouldn't start, no emergency lights. It was dark as shit so I found some cones on the road and placed them behind the car. Called tow truck. The tow truck driver said it's possibly my alternator because shortly after my lights start working again, so it couldn't be the battery. The car is at dealership now and they won't be open until Tuesday. All my life driving, something like this never happened to me before.

 

Alternator. My guess anyways.

 

I thought a dash light for the alternator would come on first once it was not working/charging.

 

Same thing happened to my sister's tsx. It was the alternator.

 

I just replaced the alternator in my 08 RDX with +100,000 miles on her about a month ago. I had a little warning because it was slowly draining my battery when driving and giving me low voltage warnings for a few days. Dealership wanted $600 to replace, I purchased local and took it to a trusted mechanic for $250 total.

 

nope, I had no warning. Also the car has only 80,000 miles. Still to hear from dealership. Thanks for letting me know that this has happened on other Acuras as well.

 

Maybe your belt snapped, or a pulley.

 

Any updates? Hopefully this doesn't scare you away

 

Yes, I'd be curious to know updates also. This happened to me last night in my driveway fortunately.

I am however today working on replacing the alternator. Talk about looking for a needle in a hay stack for a write up on doing it...

 

Was actually pretty straight forward process. Some people say to take the intake manifold off, but if you remove the accessory fan, you actually have plenty of room.

Take off a the first 3 clips holding the plastic part of the grill in place. Remove the bracket that holds the hood prop and coolant reservoir in place (2 10 mm bolts accessed by holding up the plastic piece of the grill). Remove the accessory fan (2 10 or 12 mm bolts, can't remember and a plug at the bottom). Access alternator.

 

80k miles and the alternator goes out?

 

Doesn't matter what part, what brand, what ever. Unfortunately there's always a chance of a dud.

 

Happened to me, too. Fix = alternator.