alternator for e36 1992 318i

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hyowza@gmail.com - 16 Nov 2006 21:12 GMT

Firstly, it all begin with the battery light randomly coming on. This
all lasted for about a week. Strangely, 2 days ago NO battery light
came on when i turned the ignition half way when the radio etc is on,
but the engine if off. Just yesterday, as i was driving the ABS light
started flickering, the little icon thats orange with an exclamation
mark came on. Lukely i was just about 400 meters away from home when
the car started loosing power and i struggled to maintain speed. Next
you have it, i reach home turn off the engine, tried to turn it on
again; no go it just clicks, hazard lights come on for a few seconds,
no go.

I had road side assist come to my home and check it out and he
confirmed that it was the alternator. So my question is how much am i
looking at roughly for a new alternator (not from the dealer?)

With a simple search i get various quotes, the cheapest being $180 or
so, to about $1000

$200+ here:

http://replacement.autopartswarehous...rnator&dp=true

$400+ here:

http://www.autopartsonlinecanada.com...nator/bmw.html

which one is it?

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Dave Plowman (News) - 17 Nov 2006 00:06 GMT

> So my question is how much am i
> looking at roughly for a new alternator (not from the dealer?)

> With a simple search i get various quotes, the cheapest being $180 or
> so, to about $1000

Thing is an alternator usually fails in one of two ways - regulator or
diode pack. Both of which are relatively cheap and easy to replace. So
most cheap re-con units are simply repaired. A high price maker's one is
likely to be a complete re-build - whether it actually needed it or not.
With luck, the cheaper ones may last ok.

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Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
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