TMaxxTim

Hey I think my alternator went bad, I watched the cars voltage progressivly drop tonight from my radar detector. I turned off all the electronics on the interstate when the battery light came on and by the time I got home the light was off, but only to come on a few min later after I let it idle in the driveway.

Anyways I'm trying to find out where I should get one.

I've always heard bad things about autozone's alternators. I know DENSO is the OEM manufacturer of ours, should I just bite the bullet and get one of theres even though its remanufactured? I can't seem to find a new one anywhere. There's also ACDELCO ones, and BECK/ARNLEY. I assume that Nippondenso is the same as Denso, but somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

Autozone's the only company with an online system that shows whether its in stock or not and they said it wasn't so I'd assume it would be the same for any other place as well.

I'm going to call around, just don't want to buy one now and have it be a crappy brand that breaks soon and doesn't put out good amps. I have a system to run!!

over40driv

nippendenso and denso mean the same thing, if you could get a new denso would be the best quality, and the most expensive, you get what you pay for. I am an alt. rebuilder and am not trying to sell alts. here, ill check tues. to see how much I could sell a new denso. for.

SpinAll4

I wanted to get on of the aftermarket high output ones for my car when I did the ps pump/alternator, but I couldn't find one with a price I liked (IE i think they were sitting around 500 when I looked, but after I had put my autozone one in, I found lextreme had them for around 400ish?). So I put an autozone alternator in mine. It didn't cost a ton, and came with a lifetime warenty. All the other places would only warenty their part for 1 year, even the factory rebuilds.

Mine has been in the car for about a year, and hasn't given me any problems since, but I don't have a ton of load on my car. Small 400wrms amp, cap, 0/1 awg power wire all over the car (from the alt to the battery, battery to the back, 0/1 awg grounds on the block & alternator) At some point I'll probably upgrade to a nice high output one, but I'm still not sure weather it will be on the 1uzfe, or a 2jzgte, so I couldn't justify spending 500 on somthing that might not stay in the car.

MJHSC400

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=259190

You should get it tested with a handheld tester -- Oreilly's tested mine and it's got bad diodes-- so the rectifier can be changed to correct the problem--

Sounds like your problem too--- it's about $77 for that part-- and $15 for brush/holder , and $20 for new bearings--- all oem parts-- And assuming your voltage regulator is good, those parts will freshen it up to last a long time to come--

Check the thread for more info--

over40driv

I checked on an o.e. Denso alt., not avail. through the Denso. distribution warehouse, only a Denso reman.

TMaxxTim

I ended up going with a Worldwide automotive one??? never heard of them but autozone had it the next morning for me and the Denso Reman (which was only $30 more suprisingly) would have taken a week to get there, and I don't have that much downtime for my car. Thanks for checking though.

MJHSC400

Nations auto electric dot com--

They got volt regulators, rectifiers, brushes, bearings, on and on-- rotors-- stators- all of it-- cheap

There's no need in buying a whole new alt. when you may only need a $45 part or even less

TMaxxTim

Already too late. Bought it and put it on. I don't know enough about alternators to know what to replace. I'm sure I could do it but I don't know enough about that kind of stuff to figure it out.

MJHSC400

Cool-- not that big a deal-- but for future reference, any parts house will test your alt. for free and diagnose the faulty part/s -- whether it's a volt regulator or a rectifier, they'll be able to tell you--

According to rebuilders the bearings in our Nippondenso alt's aren't proned to failure, so they probably won't need replacing ever if they're still smooth-- The common problem with our alt's is the rectifier pack, and they can be had for $50 and replaced without soldering or cracking the case halves---

If you can pull the alt. yourself, you can replace the rectifier and brushes easy...

Plus, you could buy all new internals, stator, rotor, volt. reg, rectifier, brushes one at a time as they go out, though the stator and rotor shouldn't go bad--