So I have had this problem for a while now. My car goes through alternators like no other. And recently they break every week. I would put an alternator in and it would work fine, 14.4-5 volts and charges the battery. After about a week, it will just stop charging, and the alternator is not putting out any voltage. Something is killing them and I cant figure out what. The car used to give ecu code p1500 ( alternator FR terminal circuit ). I have no idea what this is, and I searched everywhere. The odd thing is though, as soon as my car stopped throwing the code the problems began. I have looked at everything I could find, Batt is good, connections are good, belt doesnt slip on the pully. I am lost any help would be greatly appreciated.
Alternator's Keep Dying HELP!!
Black95GST
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So I have had this problem for a while now. My car goes through alternators like no other. And recently they break every week. I would put an alternator in and it would work fine, 14.4-5 volts and charges the battery. After about a week, it will just stop charging, and the alternator is not putting out any voltage. Something is killing them and I cant figure out what. The car used to give ecu code p1500 ( alternator FR terminal circuit ). I have no idea what this is, and I searched everywhere. The odd thing is though, as soon as my car stopped throwing the code the problems began. I have looked at everything I could find, Batt is good, connections are good, belt doesnt slip on the pully. I am lost any help would be greatly appreciated.
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20,857 Posts
Is your power steering pump leaking?
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my power steering pump isnt leaking. I am getting the reman ones. but there has got to be something else that is causing this. they only last about a week. I'm kinda doubting its the build quality that is making these things go out
It very likely is something else like a short or fuse that's causing your alternators to blow, but I've seen many a post talking about how someone has gone through 3 reman. alts in a month. I too have experienced no reason failure of reman. alts. Spring for the Bosch unit, you'll not be sorry. It's the price of 2 reman. ones, but it's worth its weight in gold. Comes with a really nice warranty too.
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the ones i got had a warranty. i dont pay for the ones they keep giving me. I just dont want to spend the money on the bosch one for it to die too.
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Do you have the little plastic insulator that the main wire hooks to the alternator. If not, then maybe they're dying because you're sending the 12+ straight to ground? Just guessin' here... Other than that, I'd say you have some wiring issues. Best I can come up with.... 
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heat shield has been off for about 2 years, ever since i put exhaust on. never had any problems until now. dont think it is heat related. I need to see what other components are in the charging system that might be bad. but i cant find a good schematic anywhere.
Those alternators from Autozone/reman are complete trash. Go to a junkyard and pull off an old alternator from any 4g63 car and have it tested at an autostore to verify that it is good. Then throw it on your car and never worry again. I went through two Autozone alternators before I finally said screw it and went to the junkyard. It costed me like $15 and hasn't died yet. OEM > all.Black95GST said:
I don't believe in anything bosch puts it's name on. I had a crappy duralast last me 4 years. Did You check all of your wiring? Are you running some kind of killer stereo? Just make sure all your power/ground wires are clean and isolated. There's most likely something besides the alternator causing this. Probably shorted cable.
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Check wiring, look for insulator nut on alternator, put heat shield back on or wrap exhaust and make sure there are no leaks dripping into the alternator. If you do all this you won’t have problems with the alternator. If you want to eliminate all the above and cancel them from affecting alternators in the future you can always put the alternator on the firewall side and never have the problem again. OEM, Autozone, Junkyard, Bosch alternators are all pretty much the same and don’t like the things mentioned above.
Good Luck
Good Luck
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Well one thing i can think of is when you reinstalled the first one... did you accidently put a ground on a (+) or a (+) on a ground? Because there are 2 posts on the the alternator if not more... there is usually only 1 (+) voltage closest to the radiator, the others are all grounds... DOUBLE CHECK YOUR WIREING... it is possible that your first alternator just died and when you went to change all the other ones... you might of mistakened the wireing... I remember when I put one of those retarded grounding kits, I put the Ground on the (+) accidently... first start.. big as spark and didnt start again... took me like an hour (taking the ground kit back off) before I realized i goofed up
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