Agree with the other guy to have someone else take a look but if it does turn out to need an alternator £553 really is taking the piss. A quick search on PartsInMotion for your car and I see that a replacement alternator can be had for £108 and if you want branded then a Febi one weighs in at £162 and a Bosch one for less than £200
Turns out the alternator was dying. The battery was no longer charging, and the pulley took a lot of force to turn over, hence the resistance upon coasting.
After replacing the alternator, everything worked fine! For a week. Then the issues came back. Turns out I didn't properly do the nuts for the live wire, so make sure it's snug!
I found a Lucas replacement on Euro Car Parts that says it fits my car and has 3yr warranty. I checked the specs and it's actually rated at 235 Amps.
The V8s are good. I've had 2 pulleys/bearings go bad. The second failed completely, dropping the aux belt and damaging the timing cover. If you hear any weird noises from the engine bay, check your pulleys.
They're also not as bad on fuel as you'd expect. I've regularly seen 25mpg+ on a good run.
ABS modules and siren modules always fail, but are relatively cheap & easy to replace. Alternators also seem to be a weak point and are _really_ awkward to get to.
very recently the alternator gave up that too after 3L.
oddly enough, I've only ever been completely stranded by failed alternators. once in my '98 Jetta GLX VR6 and once in my '09 Outback 3.0R
Replaced the alternator - twice. The second one failed as a result of a jump start scorching a relay in the voltage :-( Replaced the starter (in 2024), First alternator failed at 49K miles - oddly, when the car came out of the shop, the oil light came on and they found debris in the pick up so I got a new long block (under warranty so I suspect VOA knew of some defect for that model/year). Had one strut bearing fail at about 90K miles. I also had the AC recharged - car actually came from the factory with too much pressure (would ice up on humid days). I've stuck to dealer maintenance for everything except the strut repair and the usual annual CC alignments (well documented issue...) and keep all fluids (coolant/brakes/DSG) fresh. My car is still a daily driver - I'm probably due another battery soon but it runs great. I'm tempted to freshen the struts and control arms and add a rear sway bar - and possibly a tune, but I also see a Golf R in my future! I've run 3 other cars to 250K miles (Volvo 850, Highlander and an Audi 4KQ) and I don't see any reason why the dub can't get to 200K+ particularly if you keep up with a full maintenance plan. You may need to have some carbon blasting done at 100K, have the timing chain tension and service the PCV (leaving that too long leads to the carbon build up in the DI engines) but those are like 50K mile intervals
I burned up 4 of the duralast Gold GM 12si alternators while they were still under warranty, if I had to venture a guess it would be they don't like high RPM . I removed them from two of my samurai's and went back to stock, haven't had a problem since
I bought a remanufactured alternator from Autozone and it did not work. I then bought an amazon alternator. It went out 2 weeks later. I then bought the OEM Nissan alternator. I've not had a problem since (6 months)
I went through 3 duralast nators on my wife's exploder before I got one that lasted more than 6mos. Aftermarket everything has mostly gone to shit.
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