Alternators, A Good Example of What's Wrong, GM, Ford, and Chrysler

Alternators, A Good Example of What's Wrong, GM, Ford, and Chrysler

In the beginning there was the third brush d.c. generator. It required an
external control (cutout relay & voltage regulator). Mechanics found it
easy to diagnose and service.

Then there was the two-brush d.c. generator. It required an external
control (cutout relay, voltage regulator and current limiter). Mechanics
found this also easy to diagnose and service.

The early a.c. generators (alternators) where configured similar to the
third brush d.c. generators. It had a simple external regulator. It was
easy to service.

Then came on line the solid state regulators used with alternators. This
was an improvement over the old vibrating relays. This was reliable and
easy to service.

The epitomy in charging system design was the self-contained
alternator-regulator. The Bosch was compact, easy to service and
exceedingly reliable. It consisted of an alternator and an attached
sold-state voltage regulator, that's all. A Bosch self-contained unit was
not only easy to diagnose and repair, it was most economical for the car
owner. By far, this was and remains the best automotive battery charging
system.

Now we have the abysmal EFI integrated systems whereby your alternator with
its rectifier is bolted on the engine and its control (regulator) is part
of the EFI system. The usual arrangement is alternator to power module to
logic unit. This is the problem:

Diagnosis of the Bosch all-in-one charging system takes 5 minutes, tops.
The mechanic knows whether the plug-in regulator is at fault or the
alternator itself, or the connecting wiring. There isn't much connecting
wiring, being as there is just one wire from the alternator output to the
battery.

Conversly, diagnosis of an EFI integrated system requires three pages of
step-by-step procedure in the shop manual. You may have to remove the
battery or other components to access the mult-connection connectors in
both the power module and the logic unit. I cannot begin to describe the
diagnosis procedures, but let it be known it can take hours if the problem
is deep within. Hours equals hundreds of dollars. WHAT'S WORSE, IF IT
TURNS OUT TO BE THE POWER MODULE OR LOGIC UNIT IS FAULTY, these expensive
large scale components have to be replaced, rather than an inexpensive,
discrete voltage regulator. The difference in parts price between a $20
Bosch voltage regulator plugin and a logic module is hundreds of dollars in
parts and hundreds of dollars in labor. For what good reason, I ask?

So, here you have it, hours vs minutes. Dollars vs hundreds of dollars.
One system requiring a highly trained factory mechanic vs one a gas station
attendant could do..

An ideal charging system is an integrated alternator. It has only two
wires out: The main output and a warning light output. It is diagnosed as
simply as this: If there is no charging voltage on the dash gauge, the
warning light comes on. Then the mechanic checks for voltage at the output
terminal. If good, the trouble is in the wiring to the battery. If bad,
the mechanic "bypasses" the regulator with a jumper. If the voltage comes
up, its the regulator - replace it; otherwise, its the alternator - repair
or replace.

Thus, we have a simple, cheap to service charging system. One claim for
integrated EFI is the regulator can adjust charging voltage more finely for
ambient temperature, etc. Well an integrated regulator does the same thing
with a thermistor which senses the cooling air inducted through the
alternator. Why make something immensely complicated that can be made
absurdly simple? Why place the generator control in the power module where
it can fail and take condemn that whole expensive unit to the trashbin?

Show your contempt for manufacturers that make it virtually uneconomical to
service out-of-warranty systems by demanding discrete systems (ignition,
fuel, charging, starting, cooling).

EFI systems have hundreds of wires and a multitude of connectors, all
potentially trouble prone from fatigue failure and effects of corrosion.
Its great when new; but it is maddening and hugely expensive to fix. Be
advised.

 

Don't kid yourself. The "new" GM compact alternator that they started
putting in cars back in 1987 is a piece of crap. It always has been,
and it always will be. It is DESIGNED to fail; and the DESIGNED
failure mode is catastrophic - to such an extent that the unit usually
cannot be rebuilt - period, let alone by a properly equiped shop. Let
GM up a "reconditioned" one in, and you are looking at a $300 + repair
bill.

I did that ONCE. The alternater has a 12 month warranty on it. It
lasted precisely 13 months. And GM said too bad, so sad - "would you
like to book your car in for another non-warranty repair???". Hell no.
I went to the local jobber and got a Dixie rebuilt. Ironically, it
lasted for enough years that I finally traded in the piece of junk,
um, I mean car, on a newer model. A Corsica. 60,000 km warranty. You
guessed it! THe compact piece of shit alternator lasted 61,000 km!

After some severe cussing and swearing at GM, my local dealer gave me
the part, but I had to pay for a tow, and for the intallation of the
part. I was greatful for small mercies.

I have also come to the conculsion that GM, and others, have gone over
to "the dark side" of Quality Assurance - otherwise known as
"reliability engineering". ANd having done that, they have created
designs that will maximize their profit by exploding just after the
warrnty expires.

Well my pockets are not that deep. I cannot aford to be paying $600
per month on a car loan so that I can drive a $30,000 piece of JUNK.

I will never buy GM EVER AGAIN. This is the ultimate statement I can
make as a consumer.

I now drive Chrysler. And I am very happy with it. Sure there are
problems. Most are well known and documented. There is a huge support
group, and parts are relatively inexpensive.

If they are now further complicting the alternator designs, then I
guess I will just have to keep my old van running for a while longer
until they smarten the hell up. K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple STUPID!

/rant off

 

and Chrysler

You didnt have to explain it.. we know what you are talking about.

You are right, of course, the idea that the ECM is smarter than a simple
integrated regulator is ridiculous.

 

Here's what I heard my mechanic discuss with his assistant: If you
experience a fuel problem with your new Toyota Camry, they will hook it up
to a diagnosis computer. The computer will diagnose a faulty injector. So
you tell the service manager to change the faulty injector. Er, sorry sir,
the computer doesn't say which injector it is.

You do the math!

With the North American Big three, they have to pay those salaries and
benefit and please the stock holders at the same time. So any way to boost
the bottom line will be considered, even if it is using less quality parts.

 

The solution is simple, drive old cars forever. But the consuming
populace isn't about to do that because they don't want to maintain
vehicles.

That said there is some good as well as abysmal engineering in modern
cars, and DIY is possible if you RTFM and have a basic electronic
background, which mechanics today do not have, and never did. When they
start in on me with their bullshit I always ask them to explain the
difference between an NPN and PNP transistor, or if I have a NAND gate
with one leg HIGH and the other LOW what the output is, then they get
quiet.

 

A balance test should pinpoint it right away...

Rob

 

You're a cruel man!

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Simply put, we have no reason to discern the difference between a PNP and an
NPN transistor.... the majority of automotive module controlled circuits are
ground side switched, anyway.... nor do we need to understand the nuts and
bolts of a NAND gate or any other binary devices.... We are not charged with
repair the modules... we are to repair the circuits they control and replace
the modules if need be. It doesn't matter to me that NPN transistors are
easier (and therefore cheaper) to "build".... but it does matter to me that
they are used in voltage divider circuits. While I need to know "what" a
module does, I don't really have any need to know "how" it does it.

Having said that, you would be caught at at least as much of a disadvantage
if I were to ask you about the design of a Ravigneaux gearset, why it is
important to know why a shift is synchronous or non-synchronous or the
reason a solenoid "dithers"..... along with the multitude of more urbane
"old school" tasks that many "lay people" (including those well versed in
micro-circuitry) seem to have a certain amount of difficulty performing
without destroying ther parts in the process.

The techs part is to ascertain whether a module is receiving an input (a
coherent input) and whether or not it is producing an output (which may or
may not be modulated) ...... How the module processes information is of only
passing importance to the tasks we perform.

The little diatribe that makes you feel so smug and superior proves
absolutley nothing in the grand scheme of things...... It can only make
sense that my time (and the time of other techs) is spent on developing
skills and experience for the ever-changing offerings in the automotive
world, while you can rest assured that a transistor (be it NPN or PNP) will
work the same, year in and year out.

Auto repair is a moving target... one only has to compare the level of
technology present in todays vehicles to that of vehicles from 10, 20 or
even 50 years ago. Your dashboard clock/thermometer/compass has more
computing power than the US sent to the moon in the 60s. Do I need to
understand how this device processes it's inputs? No.... I only need to be
able to ensure that it has adequate power and ground connections and
coherent inputs. If it is faulty, I am going to replace it.... not fix it.
And the reason for that is "I am a mechanic and I fix cars.... not clocks".

 

Jim,

The problem that old No-Man is talking about is the disappearance of
the
modular design.

I understand where your coming from and you are right - however what is
happening
with the technology in electronics is the "all in one" designs are
becoming a big
fad item.

This isn't limited to car computers. Take a look at the latest
Macintosh. Go into
any office supply store and look at printers - quite a lot of
all-in-one designs too.

In the olden days, the CPU's used in car computers were pretty slow
so you
couldn't do much with them. Control a transmission - well slap a
computer on it.
Control a remote unlock - slap a computer on it. Control a
speedometer, slap a
computer on it. Tie all of them together with a low-speed buss like
the CCD bus
and your in business.

Today even the cheap CPU's run lickety-split. So fast in fact that
after getting
done with determining the next shift point, the computer sits around
loafing.
So the manufacturers have figued out that they can collapse all the
computers into
one biggie computer that all the inputs run into and all the outputs
come from.
It saves money, since you only have 1 computer instead of a dozen.
Until that
is, something breaks - and then there's no modules to examine the input
and
outputs, save one super giant big one. Thus making troubleshooting a
complex
system - which is the process of breaking a complex system into smaller
more
easily troubleshot systems - next to impossible. The mechanic is
reduced to
replacing the one super duper computer and crossing his fingers and
hoping that
will fix it. If it doesen't, well then that customer is likely never
to get his car
really fixed.

We are seeing the process of collapsing all those computers into a
massive
single one going on today. They haven't yet got there, but it's
coming. And every
year more and more systems in the vehicle are tied into each other,
making it
harder and harder for a repair tech to break them down into
subcomponents.

You mean like your little diatribe here? ;-)

I got news for you - the automakers frankly don't want you guys. What
they
want working on their designs are pure parts-changers. And, like some
have observed, they only want their products to last a bit past the
warranty
then go kaput, so the customer is stuck buying a brand new one.

Take a look at an old time auto service manual. Hell they contained
instructions
on how to tear down and rebuild the engine, transmission, even the air
conditioning
compressor. Hell, in the 60's you could get a Sams Photofacts for the
car radio that would even show you how to do board-level repairs to
that.

Today, the service manuals are mostly full of procedures on how to take
out
and put back in entire subassemblies. Like the transmission. They
expect that
if you want that fixed your going to take it to a specialist. Oh sure,
you can still get
the repair manual from the factory that will show you how to tear it
down and
rebuild it, but that's not part of the regular FSM.

In the olden days a lot of garages had full machine shops. If you bent
a tie rod, they
would pull it off and fire up the forge and bend it back, then probably
even peen it
for you. Today, people buy a ball peen hammer because they think that
it's
somehow more special than a regular claw hammer for hammering steel,
and
they don't even know how to use it.

No, the reason is that the procedures for tearing apart the dash to get
the
damn clock out are so complex these days that you spend all your time
in training on how to tear apart dashboards in cars. You are being
reduced
to the status of a parts-changer and you don't even really see that
happening
to you. I'll bet that it's been years since you touched a forge, for
that matter,
or done any real repairs. Your stuck subbing everything out to rebuild
houses
because the automakers have got their designs so cocked-up that it now
takes
a specialist simply to change parts.

I'm not saying that Bret is any better with his rediculous PNP/NPN
nonsense.
Sure, he may understand how the clock actually works - but if he
attempted
to change out his clock he would probably break some hidden fastener in
the
dash and end up with the interior rattling like a Mexican Mariarchi.
Whereas
you could probably get it out and a new one in and the dash would end
up looking
like it had never been taken apart. But, look man, every year the
automakers
take a bit more of the brainwork in repairing cars away from your job.
The
new designs have better than ever diagnostic computers simply because
the automakers don't trust 3/4 of the mechanics out there with an
oscilloscope
probe.

Ted

 

I agree that the failure rate of GM alternators is too high, but my
experiences with alternator replacement is drastically different than yours.
I put GM remanufactured alternators and starters in my vehicles and my
alternators typically hover right around $100 from the local Chevy dealer.
I own 4 GM products (recently down from 5), and so I do a fair amount of
parts business with the local dealer. As well, my neighbor is a lead
mechanic in that shop, so for years I have gotten discounted pricing. That
does help some, but my discounts are not so big that I get a $300 alternator
for $100. I've maintained a Park Ave Ultra, a Chevy 1500 Pickup, a Pontiac
Sunbird, a Chevy Malibu and a host of other GM cars that I've worked on for
other people.

I'm not so sure about the "just after the warranty expires" part, but
otherwise I do agree that the parts business is a recognized profit center
and failures are higher than they should be.

Well, the good part is that the GM problems are pretty well known and
documented as well. That should put their failures on par with Chrysler
failures.

Agreed - the type of changes spoken of by the OP seem just plain dumb.
But... I know that all car manufacturers are going to bigger and different
electrical system designs because the traditional 12v system has reached the
end of its life. A lot are looking at 48v systems. I'm sure there will be
lots of new designs hitting the streets in the charging systems as these new
power sources become mainstream. Oh joy.

 

Hell, I just couldn't snip any of that diatribe Jim. I sit on both sides of
the fence - I do understand NPN and PNP transistors (though I fail to see
the relevance of that), and I fix my own cars. I no longer own an
oscilloscope and it wouldn't help me if I did, since I don't have any logic
diagrams or advanced schematics anyway. I have however, gone to my local
Chevy dealer and presented a failure scenario to a mechanic and sought
advice. Sometimes his first suggestion conflicts with the total of the
symptoms I've observed and we delve in deeper.

I've seldom found such an ignorant mechanic that he could not work through a
logical progression of alternative failure possibilities with me. We put
heads together and we work at it. I have almost always found that while the
mechanic may not understand how things work inside a computer, they
certainly do understand what tends to cause certain failures and to a
degree - why.

I've experienced that they can typically tell me that "there is a component
in there that opens up", or something similar. They demonstrate that they
understand to a reasonably finite level of detail, what is really happening
and the effect that the failure has on the car as a system. It does not
matter to me that he really can't tell me the color code of a resistor or
maybe even not be able to tell me the difference between a transistor and a
resistor. Hell - what good would it do anyway? What electronic geek is
going to be able to replace a PNP transistor inside an integrated circuit
anyway?

Bloating one's chest about one's electronic prowess is nothing more than hot
air.

 

Scrape...

Still begs the point on whether 'local' voltage regulation is superior or
not.

I say it is... because the fail-safe design is built in!

 

Excatly when did auto manufacturers start doing this?
What makes you think it's only GM, Ford, and Chrysler that does this?
How hard would it be to swap it out with an alternator that has an
internal regulator?

 

Exactly where on the internet can I find more information about these
new alternators?
I am not exactly sure what to search for (is there a generic name for
this).

 

Not the rambling nonsense from this clown again.

 

If you've been around "these parts" at all, you'll recognize the OP,
and expect nothing different from him. Totally "out of the loop"

 

Dissagree . The OBD2 system will give you a missfire code telling
EXACTLY which cyl has the problem, if you know where to look.

 

Like all trolls, NN craves attention. From the size of his threads, we seem
to be happy to oblige him.

Dave

 

I would have to agree. The last thing you want in a moving vehicle
where there's lots of vibration is a bunch of connections between the
regulator and the field coil.

Ted

 

So true, that's why I decided to keep my '95 Chrysler Concord beyond my
normal maximum.
As for maintenance it's simple, go to a non new car dealer garage
interested in maintaining older cars.

I left for these garages a few years ago because based on the pressure
for me to buy one of those ugly (German styling) Chrysler 300s with the
drive at the wrong end, I no longer trusted my Chrysler dealer.