How many miles on your alternator?

First post, 5th day owning a 2nd hand 2005 4cyl taco. Sad to say after only 60k the alternator has handed in its retirement notification. I am somewhat unimpressed being all the older toyota's I and my family have owned have got close to 200k miles before changing an alternator. Hope they're not making them cheaper now.

How many miles on yours?

 

2005 V6 Taco with about 47,000 miles

 

That definately sucks. Especially on such a young Toyota. However, I don't think it is common.

 

I think the v6 alts are in a horible position, mine sees salt and all the rain water from the wheel well. But still going hard at 21,000.

 

yeah, i'm not looking forward to replacing it either.. looks like its in a tough area.

 

I just had to replace mine. Mud caked it while off-roading. I took it to All-Parts, and they could only find one refurbished alt in the whole country (130amp). I put it in and its a lot louder than the stock one was. It whines whenever I gas the truck.


To switch them out, theres two bolts on the alt you gotta take off. Then a grounding wire and a wire harness. Once the bolts are off the belt slips right off. I squeezed it out through the top by taking the battery out and unbolting the wire harness next tot he battery. Its a tight squeeze but it will go through. To put the belt back on, I had my brother hold a socket wrench on the torsion pulley and the belt slipped on easily.

 

ah good to know its easy to pull out. I figured the battery would have to come out. I was wondering if itd be easier to go from under.. but good to know.

 

visionre, get your battery tested as well. I've seen batteries kill alternators.

 

BTDT, true. I took it to toyota for the full ivr test (only $20 worth it). Battery is good, diagnosis was alt not charging as much as it should. I heard some of the 2nd gens needed an ecu flash so I thought dealership would be aware of particulars like that.

 

What's wrong with it?

I'm not familiar with the 05+ alternators - but don't they have brushes? Did you check the brushes? Are the bearings bad ? Bearings can be replaced.
Take it to battery/alternator shop and they might be able to clean it up & rebuild whatever it needs and it'll be good as new (just depends on how much they'll charge you to do all that).

On my 96 - I had it cleaned, bearings/brushes replaced and it was good as new. Mine was all smeared in mud.

 

Doing that today. Suspects it just needs a cleaning or maybe a new regulator. It's not making noise though, so I don't think it's a bearing.

Back to the subject of the post though....

 

I had a 96 with 110k miles on it when I sold it. Original Alternator.
The reason it needed bearings & brushes is because I offroaded/mudded with it for 3 years. Mud is evil.