Alternator VALEO or OEM Volkswagen
Eurovan exhibited similar behavior. Start and run fine until.... engine would lose power. Pull over and would die. Restart would be nothing. Sit for an hour or so and could restart and could get the few miles to home. Next day things could be normal or a repeat of slow down and die. This went on for a couple of weeks. The last fail found the battery to be toast even though only a year old. OK, so new battery. All good for the next few days then the gremlins return. New battery is now no good. Determined the alternator had developed enough play that when warm would start to short creating more heat and more of a short allowing it to eat the battery. New alternator and another new battery and all is and has been good.
I replaced my alternator with a Valeo unit. They manufacture the OEM part. Think it was 300$ or so, while OEM was almost double. Just a heads up, there’s almost zero clearance to remove the alternator. Really tight fit.
At 48K miles I experienced an alternator fail (car was running great at the time).
check the charging at the battery while the car is running about 2000 or 2200 rpm with multimeter. The alternator should be charging at 14 volts (give or take a little)
I just replaced the one from my 1996 Passat Tdi. 326k miles on it. The alternator still works too!
Mine has 69K miles. I've owned it for 4 years. Replaced the alternator and MAF sensor after failures. Keyless entry works only sporadically on the driver's door (lock switch already replaced - latch mechanism needs to be replaced, but for $$$).
my car had a 120A valeo, total b!tch to get out even with the front end removed, hard to get the ground wire off, will put the new one on in the AM
What bugs me now is that it seems the alt doesn't quite put out. Dash light (at least the one I put under the dash since the one in-dash quit working) won't go out. Goes from bright to dim when the alt should excite.
Upon only 3 days of ownership, the alternator went out due to the battery going bad, that took out the internal voltage regulator.
In the process of replacing the alternator..it was bad.
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