Q – I have a 1996 Carrera Cabrio and I have a number of questions. I have had repeated alternator failures in the car. The first one burned up when the wiring harness failed. My clue was that the instrument cluster lit up like a Christmas tree. I had already removed the alternator and purchased a replacement when I became aware of a Porsche service campaign on faulty harnesses. So then I took it to the dealer for the warranty work.
When I went in, even though I had already taken the old alternator out, (which had to be done to fix the harness) they charged me extra to install my own alternator. Shysters! I paid it, under protest, and got my car. About 3 months later, the replacement alternator failed due to a seized rear bearing in the alternator. They weren’t going to help me, so this time I replaced it myself.
Now two weeks later, it has failed again! It is making the same bearing noise that I heard before. I am wondering what they did wrong or what I am doing wrong. In both instances, I bought Bosch Remanufactured alternators from a local parts house and they were very good about taking the first one back. I really wondered how they were going to feel taking another back.
This time, I took it to an Authorized Bosch Service Center. I wanted the assurance that if it failed again, I could get a parts and labor warranty. I also wanted to know why two of them had failed. I can’t fathom what I could have done differently to make them last. I thought Bosch products were as good as Porsche for a fraction of the price. Now I am beginning to wonder. Georgel
A – That was an amazing string of really rotten luck! This is really going to take some time to sort out so here goes: The wiring harness failure is fairly well known, and I will start with the obvious. Porsche did not make that harness. They bought it from a vendor, they specified the level of quality required and maybe they tried a new supplier in “name your favorite third world country whipping boy”. You can bet that the person who signed off on that product has gotten an ear full. I hate to scare you but you were very fortunate that the car did not catch fire. Then again, if it had, your car insurance would have simply bought you another car.
As far as the up charge on the alternator, have you ever been to a fine restaurant and brought in a special bottle of celebratory wine to share? They let you; and when they serve your wine a corkage fee is added to your tab. Car shops are no different than restaurants. Restaurants don’t want you to bring in your own food; car shops don’t want to install your parts, since it costs them money. Next time, simply state your case for having “planned to install it” yourself and not being able to return it. In that case, if it were my shop, I would have either given you a one time pass or charged a corkage fee on the labor.
There is another part of this debacle that I know you know all too well. If you bought the alternator from them, you would have paid more. However, when it failed, they would have had to fix it again for free. So I endorse your decision to pay someone else to do the job, parts and labor both.
As far as the part failure: Bosch has hundreds of vendors who remanufacture their electrical components both in the U.S. and abroad. So in reality, the alternator was (supposedly) built to Bosch standards, put in a Bosch box, and sold as a Bosch Reman unit. They’re not perfect. But guess what, the alternator you get at the dealer is not overhauled by them either. It is again a third party vendor. So it all comes down to the guarantee.
When a part is returned to a parts store under warranty it goes back through a distribution chain and becomes part of the statistical failure pile. A pattern failure, when it is detected, is going to lead to an engineering study to determine what the problem is, but you will never know. Once you take it back, the story is over for you.
When a part is returned to Bosch through the service center warranty facility, each component is dismantled, analyzed, a report is filed, the regional service manager gets a copy, the service center gets a copy, and you as the client will know why it failed. Then they write a check. I prize this information. I trust that at Porsche the same rigorous process takes place. And I like it when I get paid.
When a part is replaced under warranty at a facility, it is far more expensive for the part manufacturer since there is labor reimbursement involved. They don’t like writing those checks, believe me. In the case of Bosch, they pay for labor to diagnose and replace the component and they also pay for the part itself. – MC