Need a new alternator

[FowVay]

OK, the alternator went bad in my 1997 Nissan pickup. I did a on-line search and saw that Advance and AutoZone sell the same product, O'Reilly has their brand and of course NAPA has their line.

I bought a alternator from AutoZone. It lasted less than one hour and 40 miles of use before it seized. I removed it in a business parking lot and got another from AutoZone. This alternator is very noisy with bearing whine. So it's coming off tomorrow and going back for a refund.

My question,, should I get the NAPA product or spend the $40 extra and get a Bosch rebuild?

Any experience with rebuilt alternators is greatly appreciated.

 

[tomcat27]

"remanufactured" has such a wide range of quality.... I would probably consider bosch to be a premium product.

 

[eljefino]

none of the above, get one from the junkyard. Hard to beat OE.

 

[oggb]

Get the old one rebuilt?

 

[Tegger]

Originally Posted By: FowVay
OK, the alternator went bad in my 1997 Nissan pickup. I did a on-line search and saw that Advance and AutoZone sell the same product, O'Reilly has their brand and of course NAPA has their line.

I bought a alternator from AutoZone. It lasted less than one hour and 40 miles of use before it seized. I removed it in a business parking lot and got another from AutoZone. This alternator is very noisy with bearing whine. So it's coming off tomorrow and going back for a refund.

My question,, should I get the NAPA product or spend the $40 extra and get a Bosch rebuild?

Any experience with rebuilt alternators is greatly appreciated.


About 90% of aftermarket remans are of very poor quality.

Have you called a Nissan dealer to find out the price of OEM remans? They may be twice the price of NAPA, but it's going to be a "set it and forget it" thing.

 

[Autografe]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
none of the above, get one from the junkyard. Hard to beat OE.



I would agree with the above if you had a later model but anything at a salvage yard for a '97 is probably got a lot of miles on it. I have actually had pretty good look rebuilding my own. If you can locate some decent ( US, European or Japanese)bearings it should solve the whine problem. I assume you no longer have your original core but if you still have it I bet there is a little alternator shop in your area that will rebuild it with better parts than the chain parts stores remans.

 

[Chris Meutsch]

That is horrible.
If you can find a rebuild shop, take the current one there.
If you can't, bite it and pay Nissan for a replacement.

I had nothing but problems with Autozone alternators back in the day. 3 in 2 years.

I replaced my 2001 Civic's with a duplicate Denso unit and it did perfectly from 179k until 227k when I sold it.

 

[defektes]

Get a NAPA new alternator they are about 20 bucks more than their reman line. I put one in the jeep and I had one in my old pontiac. Good quality.

 

[440Magnum]

There's an alternator/starter shop in my town. I use them rather than buying a mass-production "remanufactured" piece that probably has mismatched components.

Whenever I do have to get one from a parts store, I go for NAPA. Autogroan seems by far the worst. Pep Boys is almost as bad. CarQuest and NAPA both have served much better.

 

[Vikas]

Have you looked in to Amazon? They seem to carry alternators for Nissan and have 2-yr warranty including roadside assistance.

 

[Jimmy9190]

Originally Posted By: defektes
Get a NAPA new alternator they are about 20 bucks more than their reman line. I put one in the jeep and I had one in my old pontiac. Good quality.


Defektes is 100% right. I just checked Napa's website for the alternator for my own truck and the difference between new and rebuilt is only $15.00. I usually have very good luck with Autozone parts, but I have heard and read about a lot of people having problems with rebuilt alternators from Autozone and other parts stores too.

I read that the rebuilding is not exactly done to the same specs as a new OE quality alternator and the people doing the rebuilds are paid very little money and most of them have no clue what they are doing.

I like some of Autozone's parts (their brake pads are very good) but if I need an alternator, starter or water pump I will go with new premium line parts from Napa or Carquest. You have to ask for the better premium line parts, even Napa and CQ have their cheaper line parts.

 

[S2500Dog]

First take back the Duralast alternator and get your refund. You paid well over $200 for a remaufactured alternator that didn't even last one day. Next check in the local yellow pages or research online for a reputable alternator/starter in your area. They will sit down and take their time in rebuiilding your alternator to OEM quality or better. You can also check out this site https://www.nissanpartswarehouse.com/nissan-frontier-parts.html where they have the 1997 4cyl. alternator for $195.25 and the 1997 6cyl. alternator for $210.39.

 

[Virtuoso]

The NAPA reman in an old SHO lasted about two years.

The AutoZone reman that is in our Windstar works fine until you apply a heavy load. Then the lights flicker noticeably (need to take it in to get it replaced.. I'm sure they will give me grief). It's a little over three years old, and has almost 50,000 miles on it.

To it's credit, they have not been easy miles. At times it's had to constantly charge two bad batteries, at least once or twice completely from a jump-start.

Both of these alternators were the "premium" reman model.

The cheap O'Riley's brand alternator that my old mechanic put in our Saturn lasted 60k miles with no problems. (Sold the mosquito-fogger for other reasons)

In order of my personal preference:

1. Local shop rebuild
2. New OEM
3. Major parts premium reman
4. Junkyard

 

[MrMeeks]

Ouch-I just installed a autozone alt. on the Ranger.

 

[tomcat27]

I generally dont like reman'd anything. I bought a brand new (from the stealer) starter for my intrepid - especially since I had to unbolt the motor mounts and raise the engine to replace the starter. didn't wanna do that repair twice.

 

[Hootbro]

Those Hardbody Nissan trucks like to eat alternators it seems. Had a 1996 one and went through two Autozone ones also before settling on a NAPA. Only issue was the NAPA one only had a one year warranty.

 

[wrcsixeight]

In '04 I replaced my Alternator with an Autolite reman from Kragen. I paid for the 5 dollar lifetime warranty, and have used it at least 5 times. Thankfully they just took my word for it that they were bad on a few. They still worked but very poorly.

Some had bearings go bad within 2 months. One I believe had 2 of the 3 diodes fail. One of them the external fan was loose and tightening the pulley made no difference.

One of them almost stranded me in Mexico, but mysteriously started working again after charging my 3 batteries via a different source and 50 miles of driving.

The current one has lasted 3 years but I now have 130 watts of solar to take a lot of the stress off of it. It might still be working, but it's idle speed amperage is pathetic.

Since Kragen is now O'reillys and they don't carry Autolite alternators anymore, when this one goes, if they do not honor the warranty, I'll find a new one. No more Remans for me, for anything if possible.

 

[MNgopher]

My experience with Napa Remans has been spotty. The unit that went in my '97 F150 was fine (and still was last I checked with the guy I sold it to), and same with the unit in my Cherokee.

The unit that went in my '99 F150 has been warrantied out twice now. The last one lasted about 10,000 miles, the previous one less than 20,000. Not real impressed. No whining from the Napa retailer though.

In all cases, I paid extra for the lifetime warranty (premium reman) instead of the 1-year warranty. None of the local stores carry the new units in stock, but that may be next choice when I have this job on another vehicle.

 

[nthach]

I don't know if Hitachi or Mitsubishi Electric has an aftermarket program - Carquest says they source remans from them in their reman alternator lineup.

Now, if it was a Toyota or Honda we're dealing with there's really only 1 choice - Denso reman in either OEM box or Denso First Time Fit. I just installed one on a Lexus and it looks like a brand new alternator - even the stator was different as Denso says they update them to the newest build standard for that model.

 

[FowVay]

The two NAPA branded remanufactured parts are both from a company called BBB industries. Reading up on them shows they started as a rebuild company in Mobile, Alabama, but moved their entire production to Mexico 10 years later (1998). The AutoZone alternators are from Mexico as well and I wonder if they're from the same BBB industries?

BBB Industries is currently up for sale for $500 Million dollars and was purchased from the founders only two years ago. I am guessing that quality has gone down hill with each progression of ownership.

I will either get the Bosch, have my original (which is a rebuild from Advance I believe) rebuilt or get a original Nissan (Hitachi makes them) alternator and just pay the price to have it nice.

Thanks for the input!!