19 volts at idle?

[dakotap 10+ year member]

I think its the DMM as said before, BUT It could be the alt going out as stated above, What kind of vehicle is it? I would change DMM batteries or borrow a friends and check it very soon. If it is really that high. You'll burn some ish up in your vehicle if you keep driving it like that.

 

[Rashaddd 5,000+ posts]

False alarm lol...

 

[kovemaster559 5,000+ posts]

haha dam, just checked with a 9 volt battery and it read 10.5, which i'd guess means its over-shooting by a percentage or something, but that still seems like if you account for that overshooting my battery still reads high? I'm not sure but I don't think its truly 16/19 lol, shoulda checked with a standard battery first
Any idea what could have happened to the dmm? cuz I've been usin it for a long time and its never given me strange readouts before, thats just the first time I've metered this particular car battery, time to get a new dmm i guess lol

try smacking the dmm on your palm . Sometimes they work better after a beating

 

[mil81 10+ year member]

Try replacing the battery to see if it gets better. If not, either toss it (if it's a cheap one), or send it in for repair.

 

[jrwalte 10+ year member]

False alarm lol...

What? Too embarrassed to say why?

 

[rich52490 10+ year member]

Yea its the battery, the same thing happened to me when I bought my first dmm, I guess it was sitting in the case longer than I thought. Battery was only holding ~8V