Way back in November, 2008. I turned 200K miles and had my first breakdown; the alternator died.
Alternator was replaced with a rebuilt unit that I sourced from an independant parts house in California. Money was very tight, so with some help from my brother-in-law, we replaced the alternator. That is definitely a job that falls way outside of my skill set, which is why I enlisted help.
Here we are, 51K miles and 21 months later and it happened again. Driving home today, the battery light came on, again. I was able to get home, but the power steering and brakes were behaving badly. A few text messages to Chad (DetroitTuned) and some testing that I shouldn’t have done confirms that the problem, more than likely, is a bad alternator.
At least I wasn’t stuck in the middle of the desert this time.