whats up with my alternator?!?

[88eyeguy]

alright, its my 88 lx. i bought the car last october, and two weeks after i brought it back from school the alternator dies. i go buy a new ACDelco and put that in (fun fun). six months later THAT alternator dies. so i get a new one and put it in and now eight months later my new alternator is dead. what is going on? i don't have a major power draw on the car and i've only driven it 6,000 miles since i bought it. help

[NashvilleLX-i]

do you drive near the beach alot from reading of your sig you go through the parts anything different than normal? it sounds like possibly something a beach would do or something. do you keep your belt tension too tight that might do it? im stumped

[88eyeguy]

i only had it in florida for a month. its been in dallas, tx since last thanksgiving. i check the belt

[smufguy]

how did u know the alt was dead? u ran a electrical check via diagnostics from autozone or pep boys or something? I have had my Beck & Anley for over a year and put about 25000, yeah 25K miles on it. as of its change and it never died on me once. And AcDelco is better quality than mine. Its funny it died on u. Besides, these alts have warrenty on em at no extra cost, so u should be able to change them for free.

[88eyeguy]

first, it was checked at a repair shop, and second i do exchange wit the warranty, but its a real pain to put the new ones in. i'm not gonna pay someone eslse to do what i can do myself, but i'm getting sick of replacing them.

[88eyeguy]

bump: suggestions anybody?

[smufguy]

i dont know what to tell you man. If the alt is going bad on its own, then they are defective i suppose. How about you just give it back, get ur money and get another one from a different store? Where do you get your alternators from? Also under idle, how much voltage do you put out?

ps: Do you have anything in ur car that draws a lot of current?

[88eyeguy]

I fot this one from the shop when I used to work there, cuz i got a discount. I'll have to check on the voltage. On the draw, not really, I had 2 "12 Alpines, but only used them for a week before I had to sell them and the amp cuz i was short of money. (And that was only on the 2nd alt.) Right now I only have a head unit four 6.5'' coax's.

[superguillermo]

I just replaced my alternator this weekend. As it turns out, 4 months ago when changing the alternator belt...i tightened it a bit too much. The bearing failed and the pulley seized up. By the time i got it home (2 miles later) the pulley was glowing orange!!! Got a new alt w/ lifetime warranty.

[smufguy]

well i have a decent system with 200W RMS and even tho they are not too bad, it still draws extra current. I got a 4g accord alternator (follow my how-to in the project section and scroll to the rest of the pages for the belt number and pics) in my car and it has never gone bad. I have put about 15,000 miles on the alternator and like mentioned, its from autozone made by Beck Anley and its an 80amp and i got no problem with it at all. puts a constant 14.7 Volts at 2000 rpm and 13.7 ~ 13.9 Volts at idle.

NOTE: The amperage on the alt spec on Autozone.com could be wrong sometimes.