I beg to differ. That statement might hold true for alternator designs of the 60's, 70's and 80's. But alternator components have come a long way.
Shops don't repair alternators because a shop makes a ton more money installing complete alternators rather than fixing them.
Think about it, how many times can you remove and replace an alternator on these Explorers?
Takes less than 10 minutes to replace them.
If a shop charges customers $150 hour labor and the shop employee changes 6 alternators in an hour, each one of those 6 customers are gonna pay the full $150 hour labor fee.
6 customers X $150 each labor fee = Shop earns $900 in 1 hour.
Versus, the 1 hour it takes the shop employee to rebuild a single alternator.
1 customer X $150 labor fee to rebuild the alternator = Shop earns $150 in that 1 hour.
One of my trucks is a 2004 F-150. It has 240,x.. miles on the odometer. The alternator is the original OEM unit which came with the truck when I bought the truck new back in 2003. I've replaced the $50 voltage regulator once and I've replaced a $10 rectifier. Total alternator maintenance cost over the past 18 years?.......$60. How much does an inferior replacement alternator cost? $400, and pay that much every 80,000 miles?
There was a time when it was infact cheaper to replace an alternator rather than rebuilding it because rebuilding was a very labor intensive process........that time has come and gone. The tables have turned and it's now cheaper to replace a single part in/on an alternator when it fails rather than rebuilding or completely replacing one.
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I challenge you to find a typical repair shop that will do an alternator rebuild as their default repair.
99% of shops out there, you bring in a car with an alt that isn’t putting out the right voltage? They’re swapping the whole thing.
I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying it’s the norm, and standard practice these days. Especially if the mechanic sees that it’s a 26 year old original unit, as in this case. I’m sure the bearings and brushes were not long for this world.
I worked as a professional mechanic back in the day. There were many parts assemblies that we could overhaul, but we didn’t. We replaced them as an assembly. It wasn’t so much for the profit, but because it reduced ‘call backs’, arguments, and poor reviews.
In the case of an old alternator, you tell them that the voltage regulator is shot, but the rest of the alternator is probably not far behind. 80% of customers will tell you to only replace the regulator. So you do that, and six weeks later the bearings/brushes/etc go. Now they’re back, pissed off, “you said you fixed it, what the **** did I pay you for, I want this repair honored” blah blah.
Fewer headaches to just replace the whole damn thing.
