Or if you are like me, three in one year.
To be fair, the third one lasted a whole year, and the fourth lasted until I traded the car ( 8 months later.)
Best alternator for 2001 Honda Odyssey.
- Thread starter aquariuscsm
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Or if you are like me, three in one year.
To be fair, the third one lasted a whole year, and the fourth lasted until I traded the car ( 8 months later.)
Lifetime alternator on my truck is going on ten years.
Things from 10 years ago are not applicable. COVID has made parts quality terrible…across the board.Lifetime alternator on my truck is going on ten years.
Quality has been terrible way before Covid, it's always hit or miss.
Yes, but COVID has made things exponentially worse. And the race to the bottom has only gotten worse over the last few years.Quality has been terrible way before Covid, it's always hit or miss.
A rebuilder will replace the guts. What difference is it where the current alternator is from ?
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I have never bought an alternator online before and had it shipped to me. I’m guessing I would have to of course pay shipping to have it shipped to me, and pay shipping again to ship the old alternator back to the online retailer to get my core charge refunded to me?
I've had decent luck with the lifetime warranty alternators from Autozone but the one in my fiancé's 94 Cavalier is starting to make noise when cold. Luckily it's easy to change so replacement is not a big issue.
Yes, you usually have to pay shipping for buying online unless it says free shipping. Unless the core charge is a lot, I'm not spending the money to ship the core back because that is usually on your dime.
Yes, you usually have to pay shipping for buying online unless it says free shipping. Unless the core charge is a lot, I'm not spending the money to ship the core back because that is usually on your dime.
Summit Racing offers free shipping to you if the purchase exceeds $100. If I recall correctly, Summit Racing charged me the core deposit fee upon purchase of the DENSO alternator (which is shipped out of CA directly from DENSO). When I reached out to request a shipping label to return the core, they informed me that they would deduct the discounted shipping fee from my core deposit refund. It was a smooth transaction...the only caveat is that the core had to be shipped back in the original DENSO box within 90 days.
It looks like Summit is currently out of stock due to supply chain issues, but CARid has it for the same price with free shipping:
CARiD DENSO Alternator
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That's why I prefer to buy locally so you can return the core easily and also get a swap easily. Last alternator I got from Autozone was about 4 years ago and it was a rebuilt one with a lifetime warranty. Pretty much most alternators have lifetime warranties unless you get a really cheap one. Everyone complains about how bad they are, but I haven't really had a bad one. Last one I got before the current one, I ended up going through 3 of them during the life of the car, they basically lasted 80-90k before failing.
The guts, like the rotor and stator?? If you really believe that, I have a bridge in NY I can sell you.
More likely, if anything, the diodes and bearings with the cheapest available.
People have problems with rebuilt alternators probably because they don't investigate and repair what probably killed a large percentage of the poor things to begin with.... bad cables and loose and/or corroded connections. Not just making sure the various lugs are nice and shiny and properly tightened everywhere, but making sure the inside of the crimped ends arent full of crap and corrosion as well, which is really easy to miss if you don't go looking for it. Throw into the mix a bunch of weak grounds throughout the engine compartment and a battery that is probably a couple of years old and not in the best health to begin with, and its easy to see why so many rebuilds fail so quickly in older cars.
I had one crusty old mechanic tell me, and it stuck with me forever, "most alternators don't die a natural death, they get quietly murdered". No warranty on alternators unless the battery cables are replaced and if the battery is more than two years old or fails a load test it has to get replaced as well.
I can think of well over a dozen rebuilt alternators that I've installed since I started wrenching and using his philosophy, most of them of the less-than-stellar-reputation Autozone/O'reilly/Advance Auto variety, and have only replaced two of them under warranty...one had well over 100,000 miles on it, and the other was on a 90's Corolla where the alternator is right up against the exhaust manifold, and the power output was fine but the bearings were singing loudly.
I had one crusty old mechanic tell me, and it stuck with me forever, "most alternators don't die a natural death, they get quietly murdered". No warranty on alternators unless the battery cables are replaced and if the battery is more than two years old or fails a load test it has to get replaced as well.
I can think of well over a dozen rebuilt alternators that I've installed since I started wrenching and using his philosophy, most of them of the less-than-stellar-reputation Autozone/O'reilly/Advance Auto variety, and have only replaced two of them under warranty...one had well over 100,000 miles on it, and the other was on a 90's Corolla where the alternator is right up against the exhaust manifold, and the power output was fine but the bearings were singing loudly.
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