How hard is it to replace the alnernator on the LS430. It is in the shop right now and they want a ton to do it, and would rather do it myself if I could.

Thanks

 

easy answer: no, its not hard. if you are mechanically inclined, saw do it. just remember to disconnect your battery.

 

Anybody do this themselves? Any tips?

 

Actually, the alternator is fairly buried and not a quick replacement. My alternator's output is somewhat less than where it should be (13.3 volts), but I've gotten away with it for 2 years and have never had a dead battery. What do they want to do the job?

 

Better off working from under the car. Free a powersteering hose or two and you are set.

 

Thank you to all that posted and helped me out a great deal. So here is hopefully where I can repay a little.
Last couple days my battery died, simply cloncked out. So testing and following other people here advice I tested voltages and mine was low 12.63V without any load on it - meaning everything turned off - lights, radio, air anything one can turn off, no chargers plugged in nothing. Then turning on the lights the voltage dropped to 12.48V. Following some threads in here I concluded replacing the Alternator would be the right thing to do. What I did not realize until the alternator was replaced was the impact it has an the overall performance of not only the car but also all of its components and what brought it to light was when the shop replaced the Alternator and reconnected the negative cable to the same bracket it came of off. This bracket was corroded and that corrosion besides the Alternator had caused some issues for some time that I had attributed to sensors, failing window motors, fans slowing down, lowering rpm during idle. By replacing the negative connection to the engine from the bracket to the mouth on the Alternator the whole cars behavior changed. Windows are flying up and down now. Fans are running properly again, sensors reset - basically anything electrical or requiring electricity now has new life. So if you have some gremlins in your car - inspect your bracket that the engine negative (ground) is connected to. replacing or cleaning that bracket and having a nice solid ground to the and for the engine may help with those problems. After doing that - having it replaced with a rebuild unit even under full load with air, radio, lights, even turn signals on the voltage remained at 14 - 14.2V without fail. I hope that helps someone. Thanks guys for all the write-ups helping me out.