Alternator in Colorado

An alternator breathes whatever the road throws up

The case is ventilated, because the machine has to shed its own heat. On unpaved roads that means it is drawing dust through itself continuously, and the dust ends up on the slip rings and in the bearings.

A whine that rises with engine speed rather than road speed is a bearing. It is worth catching, because a seized alternator bearing does not stop at the alternator — it takes the belt, and everything the belt drives goes with it.

The climate, in a number

The north-east of the state sits in Hail Alley, the most hail-prone area in the country, with seven to nine hail days in an average year. Every one of those days is a day the cooling fan, the air conditioning clutch and the blower are all drawing at once, and the alternator is what carries them.

What goes on the roads in winter

Liquid and solid deicers go on the interstates and divided highways, and sand may be spread on any state highway. What is spread on the road reaches the alternator through the same wheel-arch opening that cools it, and a case packed with salted grit runs hotter than one that is clean.

A very large temperature swing

A Front Range day can move forty degrees between dawn and afternoon, and a mountain day more.

Every material in a vehicle expands and contracts through that, every day. Seals and gaskets that would live a decade in a stable climate work harder here. Tyre pressures move enough to matter between a cold morning and a hot afternoon, and a pressure set at either extreme is wrong at the other.

What else Colorado does to a car

Traction sand and de-icer on the corridor, applied where the grades are steepest.

Altitude thins the air the engine breathes, and the chain-law days are the ones that load everything at once.

The I-70 ski corridor and the Eisenhower Tunnel elevation make descents that go on for miles.

What we hold, and what it costs

5 options from Bosch, Cardone, Denso, Remy and Valeo, from $239.99 to $309.99. Prices are firm — where we have no price we publish none.

We are a reseller rather than a manufacturer: we source the part, check it over and sell it, and we confirm it against your year, make, model and engine before it ships rather than asserting a fit on the page. We ship anywhere in Colorado, including Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora and Fort Collins.