Danger, warning or ?

[Nailhed66]

What does it mean when the high beam indicator and battery lights start flashing simultaneously ?  This occurred shortly after start up while I was setting the clock and stopped  when I hit  the return button. The battery had been disconnected prior to startup. This occurred one other time while I was driving with the headlights on. 

[Ronnie]

I encountered something similar a few years ago. The dash lights flashed and I occasionally had problems with the engine not turning over when starting. I found my problem to be a bad battery cable connection. There is a thread about it somewhere. It is what prompted me to write this how-to guide. Battery Cable Checks & Repair Check your battery cables.

[Ronnie]

Here is a quote from when I had the problem.

 

 

On 11/15/2009 at 7:58 PM, Ronnie said:

I though I would pass this on in case anyone else runs into this.

Today my wife and I took our Reatta for a routine Sunday drive. After we had driven about 40 miles through the beautiful hills of Tennessee my ABS light came on and stayed on. No red brake warning light came on. When I tapped the brakes the IPC and the CRT started flashing on and off as long as my foot was on the brake pedal.

I pulled over on the side of the road, turned the engine off, and checked the relay on the firewall for a bad connection or something and looked over the brake system closely. I found nothing so I cranked up and continued on my way with the ABS light still shining. No more flashing IPC or CRT when I pressed the brake pedal. After I had driven another 20 or so miles I pressed the button to look at the gages and the voltage reading was jumping around from 12.2 volts to 14.5 volts erratically. I thought the alternator was going bad.

We drove about 10 more miles and stopped at McDonald's for a burger. When we came out the car started up just fine, went about 20 feet and died. Cranked back up and went another 50 feet and died. When I got under the hood and did some serious checking I found the battery cable a little loose. Tightened it up and ALL the problems disappeared.

I told this long winded story to point out how sensitive the Reatta ABS system is to voltage supply. A lot of the unsolved ABS problems that have been reported here may be due to poor connections, weak batteries and charging systems instead of defects in ABS parts. In the future when someone posts a question about the ABS light being on, maybe we should recommend testing for proper voltage to the ABS system before swapping parts to try to get it working again.

I would never have thought that the ABS light would come on and stay on when there was enough power being supplied to start the car. It may have been caused by the erratic voltage caused by the loose connection to the battery. I really don't know. Anyone else experienced a similar problem?

 

[DPS.01]

11 hours ago, Ronnie said:

I would never have thought that the ABS light would come on and stay on when there was enough power being supplied to start the car.

Agree. 
This was exactly my situation.  I suspected an electrical issue with either the battery or alternator. 
 

I solved mine by replacing the bolts in the both battery cables.  Simple fix. 

[Padgett]

"voltage reading was jumping around from 12.2 volts to 14.5 volts erratically". Gues I'd turn the headlamps on and see what the voltage does. Can think of the battery as a really big capacitor, if in the circuit properly nothing changes fast without a load change.