So I was on my way to my bowling league on Saturday morning. It was rain/snowing and I had my windshield whipers going, heat on full blast, and the stereo pumping. I am about five miles into the trip and i noticed my whipers started skipping across my windshield instead of sliding like they were. Weird.

On my next sweep of the gauges (maybe 30 seconds later) I noticed that my voltmeter was right around 9 volts, then I noticed my "Check Gauges" light glaring at me (kinda backwards huh?). I suppose the reason I didn't hear the chime was because I may have been enjoying Reanimation (Linkin Park) a bit too much . This didn't surprise me since I had been having intermittent voltage drops when I was stopped at stop lights and such. So I said a little prayer, turned off my music, windshield whipers, heater, and drove the rest of the way (5 more miles) to the bowling alley, parked out of the way incase I needed a jump and bowled for 3 hours.

Came out and my car started right up just fine, but my voltmeter showed about 9 volts and the Check Gauges light was on. Drove a couple blocks to my local AC Delco dealer. They tested my battery, showed fine. My dad really wanted to try out this repair shop that was nearby, so I left my car there for the weekend. I wasn't positive that it was the alternator (which I knew I could do myself), hence why I wanted to have them look at it. I also may have slide into a curb pretty hard (story available upon request) , and I wanted them to see if I screwed anything up (I thought I may have).

Anyway, $490 later I have my car back. Whats new? Full alignment and a new alternator. Alignment seems to have fixed my curbing issues, but that isn't the issue.

They charged me $250 in PARTS for a new alternator, plus $60 to install it. That seems reasonable in labor, but a bit high in parts...like nearly double. Well, they said that it would be a OE (Delco) brand new alternator. It was so expensive because they don't use REMAN parts. The work got OKed and they did it.

Get home, pop the hood...Here is what I find.



Yep, there is a new alternator there. Looks nice and shiney. Awesome...but expensive.

Upon closer inspection...what do we have...



Alright, the sticker says AC Delco Hmmm...that sticker has lots of other stuff on it...lemme peer a little closer...



Yeah, so the pic didn't turn out real well. I tried to enhance it a bit, but if you looks closely next to the AC Delco (to the right of it) it says "Remanufactured For AC DELCO."

Wait a minute, that doesn't seem right. My dad called the only Delco dealer in town, and I think they only had a price for a Reman. So did I get a reman and they pocketed my $125 or so??

It would appear that from the sticker, you got a legitimate remanufactured unit.

According to www.partsamerica.com (Checker Auto Parts, etc), an ACDelco Reman Alternator for a 98 (my car) is $262.99 plus a $65.00 core charge, so you didn't doo too bad.

But, if I remember right, Mr Alternator (or whoever WillWren uses) has 200 amp'ers for about $200.....

i soooo would be going back there and tell them you want a AC Delco 140 AMP

Last I checked on mine the AC Delco units re-use the castings but the rest is new. The price was a bit much though because I got mine for $210 CDN ($180 US). I got the original spec 140 amp alternator.

Cheers,

ahahaa I swapped alternators from 2 cars swapped in less than 18 minutes last summer. 1 beer job.


but yeah I would be asking why they charged you so much for that 105A alt.

Me and boosty were talking on AIM. I forgot that they probably got it from the stealership in town. GMPartsDirect has it for $112, and it says you saved $112. So it is probably a $225 part, and then my dealership probably sells it for $250. Yeah, they soaked me, but I think they did it in a ligit way.

Alternator has got to be the easiest bolt-off, bolt-on part in the car, next to the battery. Am I wrong? I'd have done it myself. 1 beer, indeed.

250 for the alternator is high for sure but thats the thing about alot of shops. They have a pretty big markup on parts. $60 a/hr for labor doesn't sound bad, I know the shop I work at charges $58 a/hr for labor.

Yes, I should add that for having a shop diagnose it and perform the job for you, that'* a pretty typical price. Certainly my dealership charges much more per hour for labor, and the $250 for the alternator is pretty typical of what the dealer would have charged. Pricewise, for not having to do it yourself and having a warranty on your parts and labor, you paid what anybody else would have paid, and you shouldn't feel that they ripped you off.

On the other hand, make sure they put the right alternator on your car. Check your RPO codes, and if you had a 140 amp, make sure you got a 140 amp. (RPO code reference is in tech info.)