Charging light came on, instrument panel flickers

[roadhard1960]

I was heading to work and got distracted missing the fuel station to refuel. Charging light came on and intrument panel was flickering. Tach and speedo flickered on and off. I turned back for home to grab big butt truck but decided to change voltage regulator. Grabbed a new regulator out of the toolbox and spent an hour or so swapping out the old one which indeed had some well worn brushes. Heck the odometer shows just 294,000 miles so now I know about when it is time to change the regulator on any friends VWs (30,000 miles earlier). I drove back towards work remembering to put 16.2 gallons in. I cleared a few codes related to dead brushes after refueling. Thank goodness, I guess, that I had ordered a regulator a few years ago. I still have replacement disks and front brake pads waiting to wear out. I am still on the original front disks and pads.

 

[Joe_Meehan]

You may want to check to make sure the instrument panel has a good ground and is receiving a good 12 Volts.

 

[roadhard1960]

Sorry if I was not clear, the old old regulator brushes were worn out. New regulator with brushes got me rolling.

 

[Henrick]

Alternator life (as well as many other component life) does not depend on mileage. It's not oil, filter or any other regular maintenance item so you can't set a replacement interval for it. It depends not on many but on much factors so you can't say you know when to replace it.

My trip to work i 6 miles. I do them in 45 minutes. During the trip I have my A/C on, listenin to radio loudly and the low beams are on (like DRL). Do you still think I'll need to replace the voltage regulator at 290,000 miles? I doubt. Oh, and I have a Valeo alternator; I've heard they're not serviceable and one mingh/will need to replace the complete unit in case of failure.