F355 Alternator problems - Update

Well,

Now that the dealer replaced my alternator, for the fourth time in five years,
and it went bad again in 7 miles from leaving the dealership,........they call me today and say they want to replace the entire wiring harness! They say that it must be an intermittant short somewhere, and they can't find it, so they say the only thing they can do is replace the wiring harness. I said,
"so once you do this (and charge me thousands of dollars, I'm sure) and the alternator goes bad again, then what?" He said, "well, you'll have a new wiring harness and a bad alternator!" What the hell is that?!!!

I said that there must be a way to isolate the problem!

Any suggestions before I have them do this?

 

RUN LIKE HELL. i would take it to another place for a secod opinion. these guys have taken enough of your money and dont seem to be interested in fixing the problem, just throwing parts.

how much is the wiring harnes btw????

 

on a similar problem, the cure was to replace the cutoff swicth
did they checked it?

 

The sad part is that may be the easiest way to attack the problem. Well, thats what they must be thinking. They could spend many many hours(at your expense $$$$$$$) looking for the electrical gremlin in your 355..............or it may be a quick fix. A frayed wire ect..... Or they could replace the wiring harness and hope thats it. It can almost be like a needle in the haystack looking for electrical shorts alot of the times. A good auto-electrician may be your best option to try sort it out, not the guys at the dealership!!! Where i work in the mining industry, the auto-electrician comes across elec-shorts all the time and has a good go at trying to find/fix the problem. Sometimes its easier replacing the wiring harness because its very time consuming trying to find the short circuit and it costs the company lots of dollars when a machine is not operating. Take it to a top auto-elec and tell them your 4 alternators in 5 years story and see what they say. I would have done that after the 2nd alternator.

 

I suggest you first have them remove the present alternator and then you take it to an independent shop to have it first run tested and then disassembled to determine what's going on.

I am just repeating what another had suggested.

Remove and load test the battery as well.

FWIW, in all the cars I have owned (and that's a large number) on only one did I have to service the alternator, and that was after 170,000 miles!

So, this is definitely a weird situation.

I think the wiring harness is a smoke screen and sweetens their pockets for having to possibly again replace your alternator.

I am astounded as to the problems you have recited about this.

The mention of the cutoff switch makes sense, but there is something that is draining that battery.

You also need to see what load there is on the whole system with the car parked.

I'd certainly be going crazy with this problem after the first alternator went bad.

 

It does seem quite high, the rate that you are going through them.

Just have a shop check the old alternator.

Most likely if it is bad, it is probably the grounding of the alternator or where it bolts to the block.
The 355 did have problems. There was a fix or sorts with and extra ground wire attaching from the alternator body to the engine block.

Make sure you have a good gauge wire too, I have seen some thin wire burn out.

Good Luck to you!

 

You've been replacing alternators non-stop for 5+ years, yet you don't know if you have a mechanical problem (e.g. loose alternator bracket, broken motor mount, stray piece of metal banging on your alternators) or an electrical problem (e.g. short circuit that only occurs when the car is driving) or heat/chemical problem (e.g. oil, power steering fluid, coolant dripping onto your alternator, etc.).

You've also pretty well ignored the advice given to you so far about having your dead alternators disassembled to determine if they were killed by fluids or heat or short circuit...ignored the ammeter suggestion when the car is parked as well as driving to compare current loads...brushed off suggestions to load test your battery ("but it's new") or check the tension on your alternator belt ("but the dealership couldn't get it wrong 6 times in a row"), etc.

Aren't you just going to brush off or otherwise ignore everything else that is suggested to you?!

Come on, be honest...you just want to hear that if you buy XXX brand alternator that you'll be golden...or that a different relay or some other magic bullet will solve your problem in a single failsafe swoop.

And you've repeated this process a half dozen times already, yet none of the new alternators solved your problem.

The next one won't either, but I bet that's all that you try.

 

Yep.....we mentioned this crap way back on the 23-5-06.

 

It is insane to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. You don't seem too knowledgeable about cars, but your dealer should be. He should be shot selling you another alternator at this point. He's robbing you and you're letting him.

As No Doubt mentioned, you have not given us any useable information about WHAT is failing on the alternators. I *assume* it's the voltage regulator, but it could be the diode pack. Which is it? Ask the mechanic. If he doesn't know, then boil him in oil before you shoot him.

The VR will fail if you run the car off the alternator with no battery in very short time. 7 miles worth. So a smart mechanic would look at the wires to the battery first. This includes the grounds of course; an extra ground strap has been suggested more than once. Replacing the WHOLE wiring harness is crazy. Even though I'm sure the suspect wires are buried in bundles, a good mechanic with the wiring diagram and 5-6 failed alternators, all failed the same way (I assume), should be able to pinpoint likely areas to look.

VR's don't die from short circuits. Mine was shorted to ground for two weeks of driving and as soon as I corrected the problem it has worked flawlessly. I would bet it's a broken wire, bad ground, etc. inturrupting the charging circuit and killing the VR.

Good luck, electrical problems are a PITA and they need a thoughtful, knowledgeable approach. Your current menchanic is more a thief than anything else.

Ken

 

I think a great mechanic should have identified the problem that caused the 1st alternator failure and gotten to the root of the problem. A good mechanic should have caught on on the 2nd alternator failure that something else is wrong and identified the cause. A mediocre to bad mechanic would have certainly caught on by the 3rd alternator failure that something else is not right and pin pointed the cause.

If after 4 alternators and the guy still has no clue other than saying a new wiring harness MIGHT work, then there is no reason to believe this particular tech has any idea what he is doing. Your dealer certainly has not treated you right and has wasted your time and money.

If it's a short circut causing the failure, they can certainly trace it. If they suspect an intermittent short circuit, then they can certainly make a temporary jumper on the suspecting wires to see if that solved the problem. If the temporary jumper wires indeed solved your problem, then it might make sense to recommend a new wiring harness later in time to make it a permanent fix.

Others have suggested multiple types of tests to isolate or at least narrow down the possible cause of your problem. Short of doing those tests to isolate the cause of the problem, IMHO even a great mechanic will not be able to tell you what to do next or diagnose your problem via the net.

Good luck to you in resolving your dilemma.

 

Ken, thanks for the tip. I did not know that about VR's (seriously).

 

I found that out the hard way. I took the Lotus to my bowling league, and when I went to go home, the coil would disconnect in the "run" key position. So the engine would die. The keyswitch was to blame, all worn out. I was able to hot wire my car and drive it home, but in disconnecting the starter solenoid power I also disconnected the battery; I drove home on the alternator. The VR was fried when I put it all back together; my Europa gurus read my story and all said I did it myself when I disconnected the battery. I had just had the alt. rebuilt and was ready to kill him, so I was lucky I found out about that first! You know I feel about bad mechanics.

Live and learn huh...but it was just a $19 part and I didn't have to get a tow at 11 PM so I suppose it was worth it. Plus, I learned how to rebuild my own alternator as a result! They are really easy to do BTW.

Ken

 

That's pretty cool.