Can a bad alternator/battery cause this?

[Mokmo418]

I jsut came out of the garage, i had my '02 Mazda Protege in for its oil change and i had a weezing sound checked which turned out to be the alternator beginning to give up. So the mech did a test on the electric group, the battery was barely giving out enough juice to start (with a mild winter and constant use, it didn't really show up on startups) and the alternator was just as bad.

Those were the original Battery and alternator, so 8 years sounds, well, great considering the first car my mother let me drive had gone through alternators yearly until somebody came with a good solution.

So i got these changed. And apart from the noticeably quicker response time on startup, i noticed that my harder accelerations were constant, as normally the auto trans would downshift...

2 questions:
1. Eight years on the same alternator/battery combo in Canada: good, great or "whoa!" ?
2. Could the delayed response time from the electric system have caused difficulties with accelerations?

(And the mechanic considers Proteges better than Mazda3's, as the whole vehicule is more japanized, much less "Ford-ish" than the 3)

 

[LTC8K6]

That's great, imo.

Perhaps it's the computer reset and relearn from having the battery disconnected?

 

[Mokmo418]

Could be, but whatever caused this, i've never driven this smooth in a few years, and it's still on its wonter tires lol.

 

[AMCRambler]

I'd say higher voltage from the alternator ought to be charging your ignition coil/coil packs quicker and you might get a better spark at the plugs. Might be enough to be noticeable, but probably not huge.

 

[exdeath]

Low system voltage causes fuel metering reduction and poorer ignition under load, so yes. Fuel pressure, injector duty cycle, spark, etc, all affected by electrical system.

In fact every fuel injection system has a compensation table to multiply injector open time by a % as a function of low battery/alternator output. Similar with spark dwell and ignition timing. If it goes too low, it might start erring on the side of engine safety and not trying for optimal performance (don't want to lean it out under high rpm/load because injector/fuel pump gave up from insufficient electrical power).

And yes, 8 years of Canada cold on the original battery and alternator is pretty damn good.