my car broke down the other day, and unfortunately the warranty company declined the claim because they said it was a long term oil leak, that couldnt have been caused in the past 10 days (which is how long the warranty has been active).

my mechanic suggested sending the alternator to a place to see if it can be rebuilt (to save a few bucks). Comes with a 1 year/12k mile warranty. What are your thoughts/experiences? Do i have anything to worry about?

 

 

+1

A rebuilt alternator done correctly will be just fine. It may just take longer unless they have one on the shelf ready to swap with your core. I had the starter rebuilt on my XK8 and it performed perfectly.

I would be wary about buying a used one from a junkyard (breakers).

 

thanks for letting me know. this one comes with a warranty, so i guess it cant be that bad

 

Warranties on parts aren't that exciting when they don't cover the cost of labor to replace the part. The labor is often more than the part.

Since I do all my own work, I have the luxury to spend the savings on new parts so I don't have to do it again in a year.

 

Honestly Rebuilding your own is probably the best way to go, because it cost so little to upgrade the output amperage, I went from the stock 150 amp to 250 amp for about $230 total 1 year warr, the place that did mine is in this thread. rebuilding your own, you know it will fit back in perfectly, and new ones fail out the box and don't give you a better warr. than rebuilt, so no matter what you do you take a chance. Just make sure whoever dose your alt rebuild replaces the voltage regulator, even if your old one test good. And if you do up your amperage, it's a good idea to run an additional + line from the output on the alternator to the + side of the starter since our battery is in the trunk.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...change-189069/
I also got my starter rebuild for a fraction of the cost of a new one (2 year warr.) And it turns faster and sounds better than when I bought the car, both the starter and alt where rebuilt locally while I had lunch.

 

Thanks will, this makes me feel more comfortable. Unfortunately i dont know who is going to do the rebuild, my mechanic is taking care of it. Even if i tell my mechanic to tell him, im afraid the communication will be dropped. never the less, we'll see what happens. I doubt they will upgrade the amperage. I assume they're going to replace everything, since everything was oil soaked. The mechanic also ordered a Jag OEM part just in case the rebuild isnt possible

 

It should be totally rebuild-able, both the alt and starter are made by Denso for Jag, nothing special about the internals. Please let us know where the oil leak was, and how everything turns out.

 

I don't really understand how an oil leak turned into a bad alternator but it is New Jersey... LOL. If it is a fly by night cheap shop then no don't bother but if it is a good quality shop that uses quality parts and internals then you'll get a better than new alternator for a fraction of the cost. My guess is if you ask your mechanic the name of the shop and they have been there for 50 years then likely all is good. A good starter/alt shop is worth its weight in gold and is an insanely busy place. I wouldn't up your amps unless you really need more amps as amps equal heat and heat kills alternators esp. ones buried. I have never had a rebuilt one from my local starter alt. shop fail. I have had new ones from every manufacture fail though and they cost 3-10x more.

 

Not to pretend like I am an Electrical Engineer, or anything, but I am an Electrical Engineer. If you up the rating of the alternator to be able to generate more amps, that doesn't mean it's going to generate more amps. So your whole comment there is just so far off base, speaking strictly from an Electrical Engineer perspective, that it highlights why people that are not Electrical Engineers should never post on public forums about electrical topics like they actually know what they are talking about.

 

It is one of the dumbest things the average person can do when their lights go dim. Spoken from someone who doesn't give a rats **** if you are an electrical engineer or not. I live in the real world not a little fairy world that I need a 250 amp alternator in a freaking car to power my ego. So sad.

 

The mechanic said it was coming from the oil filter. I guess the mechanic that did my oil change in Jan (different shop) didnt tighten the filter? or a gasket wore out? im not too sure, but they said it was a slow leak over time. I personally never saw any oil on the floor.

 

Just avoid those "rebuilt" alternators with the lifetime warranties from most of the discount chain stores. What some of them do is they test the returned cores to see what's broken and only fix just that to minimize costs. For example if an alternator just needed new brushes, they'd clean it, throw in $2-3 worth of brushes and ship it out to a store. But it might have come from a car with over 100K miles on it and maybe the old bearings are about to fail in another 20K miles. They know they can offer a lifetime warranty on such parts because the average person shopping at those stores is not going to have that car more than a year and even if they did, most are high-mileage cars that something else is very likely to take it off the road before it needs that alternator fixed again anyway. Its economical for them to take the chance, but YOU or your mechanic are the ones paying for removal and installation if it has to be fixed second time. That's why many reputable shops will insist on new or only use rebuilt from certain sources they trust. If you take to a local alternator shop, you can specify that you want a new voltage regulator, new bearings, basically all consumable parts replaced and it usually won't cost any more than the chain store. Also, I don't know if you care about such things but in the long term, when cars become classics after 30 or 40 years, they are more valuable if they still have all their original serialized and/or date-coded components. I often get them to bead-blast the case and if any of the zinc or phosphate coatings on the pulleys or fans are deteriorated, I'll get those replaced as well. The downside is you usually have to wait a few days or even sometimes maybe a week or two depending on their workload and parts availability before you can put your alternator back in. I think its perfectly fine to let your mechanic send your original alternator out to a shop he trusts.

 

I love it when people change the subject after being called out for posting some so incredibly stupid as fact as if they are an expert. LOL. If you think that uprating the alternator is about ego, you are just digging yourself in to a deeper hole. When electronics are pushed to their limits, that's what breaks them. When you uprate them without increasing their load then you are keeping them away from their limits and making them last longer.

How you going to change the subject this time, TREVOR?

 

Actually Trevor it has little to do with ego and more to do with the way a cars charging systems works, in it's simplest form the alt charges the battery, and the battery runs the cars electrical systems. As Lotus says a 250 amp alt is not generating 250 amps or the heat associated with that much current ALL THE TIME. It's about the 250 amp alt having faster transient response because of it's higher capacity, and being able to generate as much power at idle as as the stock alt did at 3000 rpm. So when I'm sitting in 100º Los Angeles traffic with my AC blowing and seats cooling I'm not killing my battery.
Lotus we are in agreement Oh my..lol, as all of the electric motors in my plant are uprated to at least 1.5 capacity and last for years running 24/7..