Alternator AC DELCO or OEM Volkswagen

The high rev voltage must be over 14 volts, so if not, then its the alternator. But make sure all connections clean and greased.

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.

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!

I've had 3 issues with the car: 3. recently - replace alternator (the car just knows I'm about to retire it).

okay so i installed an alternator in my car yesterday, boosted it, let the battery charge a bit, removed jumpers...car stalled.

The issue you can run into is most common vehicle alternators are light duty at best. Lets say its a 100 amp alt, don't pull more than 40 amps continuous. A great example is the AC Delco 10si alternator. Loads of cheap knock offs and copies of that alternator all claiming crazy high amperage but none list the duty cycle. The 10si frame is designed for 40 amps of power and the heat that creates. You might be able to get a little more cooling with a better fan but you won't get 100+ amps out of one.

Upon only 3 days of ownership, the alternator went out due to the battery going bad, that took out the internal voltage regulator.

the car is a 1996 golf gl, 5 speed, with A/C (this is relevant to the alternator spec) Original problem, car not charging and replacement alternators were no good