On My 3rd alternator in a month

[lsmaclean]

So about a month and a half ago my alternator died on my way home from college and i was forced to replace it at 8:30 at night in a parking lot. then two weeks later i'm driving to work and i give it a little gas and the battery light comes on and my voltage gauge drops to 12 for awhile and then the alternator completely dies. so i returned that one and got another one this being the 2nd one and again it lasted for two weeks and then it started putting out 16+ volts, now while it was doing this the battery light flashed rapidly whenever the volts would hit 16+ and the only way for me to keep the alternator from frying my battery was to turn on all of the accessories and/or hitting the gas causing the volts to hover between 12 and 15 volts. so now i'm on the third alternator and i'm starting to think that there might be some other electrical issue that's causing me to destroy alternators. Like maybe a fuse or a relay?

[CoyneJ]

Sounds like a voltage regulator, are you sure you're buying the exact alternator you need

[lsmaclean]

yeah the new alternators come with a brand new voltage regulators and yeah the original one was a 120 valeo unit so i make sure to replace it with the same one

[MetalMan]

How old is your battery? If your battery isn't holding a charge well it could be over-working the alternator and/or regulator.

[lsmaclean]

I'm not sure how old the battery is, it came with the car when I bought it in April, also i tested the battery multiple time and each time it said that battery was in great shape. Could a bad ground be causing this?

[Theiceman]

I bet they are just crappy refurbs.


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[CoyneJ]

I bet they are just crappy refurbs.


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That's what it sound like to me

[lsmaclean]

So the new alternator is acting up again... I'm stumped I have no idea what else could be causing this. My belts seem fine so does the tensioner so if anyone has any other ideas I'm willing to try anything

[seanf86]

I bet they are just crappy refurbs.


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Had this problem on my brothers 2.8 B5, got towed to my house in January, froze my ass off changing it and bought a reman from the parts store, 2 weeks ago that one died and I swapped it out again. You're better off getting a working junkyard alt that hasn't been remanned in some 3rd world country then a parts store rebuild, at least this last warranty replacement the regulator said Bosch right on it and it was remanned in the USA.