Alternator in Washington

The connections corrode before the machine does

Damp air works on the exposed side of an alternator: the terminal stud, the plug on the regulator, and the earth strap between engine and body. A resistance in any of those looks exactly like a failing alternator on a meter at the battery, and is a fraction of the price to fix.

Check the charging voltage at the alternator's own output and then at the battery. A meaningful difference between the two is a connection, not a machine.

Constant rain, and brake corrosion is the local consequence of it.

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

Parts of the Olympic Peninsula take upwards of 150 inches of precipitation a year, so nothing underneath a car there is dry for long. 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 calcium, sodium or magnesium chloride goes down before a storm, solid rock salt takes off a thin layer already frozen on, and sand still goes out in colder weather. 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.

Hills and traffic

Seattle and Tacoma are built on hills steep enough that parking on a gradient is routine, which loads the parking brake and, on an automatic, the parking pawl. The correct sequence on a slope — brake held, parking brake applied, then select park — puts the load on the parking brake rather than dropping the vehicle's weight onto the pawl.

Puget Sound traffic is a brake problem on top: stop-start driving at full vehicle weight consumes friction material at a mileage a rural car would never approach.

What else Washington does to a car

No road salt on the west side, so what corrodes does so from the air.

Cascade pass descents, and Seattle hills in traffic.

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 Washington, including Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver.