I am about to change an alternator out for a friend's car. The only real choices are the dealer (cost an arm and leg) and Discount stores like AutoZone, O'Reillys Auto Parts and Advance Auto Parts around here. NAPA too.

Most of the alternators have a lifetime warranty on them, but are they really reliable? I haven't had experience with an after market manufactured alternator before.

The cost is about $130-170 for an alternator between these shops. This is


Any advice or opinions would be helpful!

 

their all fine pick whicher one is the cheapest.

 

Are you being serious? Where do you think most shops get their parts from n00b? They order from...you guessed it Like Frost said, take your pick and have a nice day.

 

i read some discussions a while back saying that people had a lot of trouble with alternators from Autozone and Advance. Since it was a long time ago and i may have not remembered correctly, I was making this to confirm or deny this

 

i got a autozone alternator in my car and it works just fine....

 

cool, thanks for the replies. looks like i was thinking of another discussion from a while ago.

 

You go to the stores off Sante fe, don't you!

Great people, if you have any problems with things you buy, they'll be more than willing to help you out.

 

I upgraded the the alt. on my dad's f150 from 65 to 95 amp which we bought at advance well needless to say it didn't work at all and put out zero volts. The bad thing is the store we got it from that was the last one and had to goto another advance to trade them out which sucks for me cause I had to swap the thing out twice. imo napa has better quality stuff or at least they used too. I have a friend that does commercial sales for autozone and also previously at advance and told me you have about 50/50 chance of getting a decent one from either one of those stores. I've used napa starters and alt. in the past with no issues.

 

Nearly all Autozone alternators are fine. Yes, if you have a rebuilt part you run the risk that the part will not perform as well as you'd like.

Autozone will bench test the alternator free of charge before you even buy it. You can also bench test your old one if you'd like.

 

Been using an autozone alternator for almost a year now and still going.

 

never had a problem

 

orielly is pretty much the best and the cheapest, seeing how we match prices.

 

yup....

 

Autozone, where I work, also matches prices. We accept a quote from another business or we can call them for the customer.

If you call us beforehand, the part is in stock and you want it, just ask us to hold it for you. We can hold it for up to twelve business hours (so if you call five minutes before we close, we can put it on hold to keep holding it for hours after we open the next morning).

 

What is wrong with your friend's alternator? Depending, there may be another far less expensive choice: Just change out the old alternator's brushes. The brushes runs about $27+shipping/handling at maximumautoparts.com . See http://honda.lioness.googlepages.com/alternatorbrushes for clues on changing these with the alternator in place. Or the bearing may need replacement. Many people just change the brushes and bearing.

I find Autozone people's testing and expertise is hit or miss (but so's the dealer's, so... ). Plus remember they are trying to sell parts, so there may be some bias. For example, I remember Autozone tested my Civic's electrical system a few years ago. The clerk said my Civic needed a new alternator. After more research, I found it was merely a dying battery, which I replaced, problem solved. Nice of Autozone to read CEL codes, loan tools, and provide half-decent online manuals for free, though.

One more choice: Ebay is selling alternators for quite a bit less than Napa, Autozone, Pep Boys et al.

 

Autozone has the following free checks:

- Charging system check (on car): This can tell you if there's a problem with the overall charging system. This can rule out that there is a problem or say there's some issue, but it can't say what for sure. Takes about five minutes, car needs to be able to run and rev to 2,000 RPM. If you battery is toast I've seen this test kill the battery (until jumped), but it doesn't happen often.

- Battery test (on or off car): This test if the battery is good or not. Often you'll end up with results saying that the battery needs to be charged before it can get an accurate reading though. Car must be turned off if it's still on the car.

- Ignition control module test (bench test): Tests to see if the ignition control module is good or not.

- Starter test (bench test): Tests to see if the starter is good or not.

- Alternator test (bench test): Tests to see if the alternator is good or not.

Those are our main ones. We also will do other ones, but it varies from store to store and employee to employee since some people are just better prepared and willing to work on these cars for free and with risk with no coverage.

The last two tests aren't 100% either. I've seen starters and alternators test good, but they're not working on the car. I'm not going to refuse to sell something to a customer who wants it though, of course.

Battery charging and testing is free.

CEL checking ('96+ in particular) is free. Some stores will also try to do earlier years, but it varies by make and sometimes even model. Look at the books on the floor. There's a blue manual that goes over the codes and how to pull them. Some are more difficult to pull than others.

I've successfully purchased parts off of eBay, but the only issues is that if you're not 100% sure or you have a problem, it's not local. Okay if it's just a wiper motor, maybe not so much when it affects if you car drives or not.

 

I would not use Autozone's staff for a final diagnosis. Most of the people here strike me as being at least as competent as the typical AZ clerk. A second opinion from AZ cannot hurt, just do not trust it blindly. On the third hand, I hate wasting the AZ staff's time unless I intend to buy the part there; it's just dishonest. (I buy hand cleaner, oil, filters and other basic supplies there often, though, because of all the free stuff AZ does for people. I want to help keep them in business! They also have decent prices on certain basic tools.)

Agreed. Not sure of the OP's timeframe, either.

One other option: www.densoproducts.com sells Denso Alternators, Denso being the OEM manufacturer of many or all Hondas' alternators. The price is way less than what one pays at the dealer.

 

Usually the tests are pretty straight forward. If a battery's bad, it's bad. I always test a battery before I do a charging system check on a car. It's just good sense to test the most likely item to fail first.

I can't say I purchase a lot from my own store either. I just don't need it and prefer the OEM stuff anyway.

As far as education, I'm always surprised how people seem to think auto store employees should be highly trained automotive specialists, yet they will diagnose and fix your vehicle for free, know every part to ever come on any car (by vague description too), know how to repair anything on any car ever, how to to paint, do body work, do random part swaps and of course know exactly where any random part would be on the shelf without the help of the computer look-up system.

Yes, I have customers who have mentioned all these things to me before. One guy asked me for a radiator hose once, then angrily told me how I'd gotten him the wrong part and that the place he used to go to never even had to look the parts up. They'd know what hose on that thirty foot long by ten foot tall display would be needed for his 1970s Datsun pickup.

We figured out why the computer showed the "wrong part". The customer had told me to look up the wrong model. He didn't know what he was driving, but it was somehow my fault.

The truth of the matter is that Autozone and many other parts stores pay minimum wage or very close to it. This doesn't exactly attract professional mechanics or anything. They have rules that the parts associates (red shirts) are only supposed to work 15 hours a week. That really cuts down on any training that could otherwise even be available. Not that there is really time anyway or that Autozone makes such training available.

Autozone will pay for ASE Parts Certification if the employee manages to first pass the pre-test. They do ASE Certs once a year.