Do Not Buy An O'Reilly's Alternator

I strongly recommend that you not buy an alternator from O'Reilly's.  I say that because at this point in time I know of three that were bad out of the box and one that failed very quickly - out of a sample size of six.

Here's the story:

About six weeks ago a family at church had an alternator go out on an Expedition and since they needed it quickly I volunteered to install the one they bought from O'Reilly's.  About four weeks later they called and said it died on them while driving.  I checked it and the alternator wasn't charging so I pulled it and took it to O'Reilly's to have it tested.  Unfortunately their tester was down, and apparently had been for weeks according to the guy that waited on me, so he replaced it with another one and it fixed the problem.

When I told the family that it was a bad alternator they said the alternator had gone out on their Suburban and the new one they bought from O'Reilly's was bad out of the box.  I wish I'd known that as I'd have gone for an upgrade instead of the O'Reilly's brand on the Expedition.  Anyway, they installed another one from O'Reilly's that is still working.

Recently our member Socnarftrucks bought an O'Reilly's alternator, installed it, and it didn't work. Took it back and they gave him a new one.  It didn't work either so he took it back and it tested bad.

Bottom Line: Three of the six alternators, or 50%, have been bad out of the box, and another one failed w/in a month.  That's a 66% failure rate.  DO NOT BUY AN O'REILLY'S ALTERNATOR!

I've had problems with O'Reilly's electrical stuff. Purchased my 3G alternator from AZ with a life time warranty. So far, so good.  

Both of my trucks have Oreilly alternators. Go figure.

I'll share my perspective for those who may not realize how O'Reillys, Autozone, Advance, etc work.

When I worked at Advance Auto, I used to pull alternators out of the box and have pieces fall out of them onto the counter. I probably had that happen at least 6 times in the year that I worked there. One could easily say not to buy their alternators as well. I have an alternator from Autozone in my truck. The last one from them only lasted about five years. Who knows how long my current one will last?

I remember when customers used to come in and tell us that Autozone batteries were better than Advance batteries. The funny thing is that both chain's batteries were produced by Johnson Controls, and they only occasionally differed in price, different stickers on the battery, and sometimes better warranty. Otherwise, they were the same batteries.

I remember opening BWD electronics boxes, only to find that the inside flap was printed in Duralast colors from Autozone.

I recently bought an O'Reillys clutch set for my Ranger. Inside the box was a set of instructions from Perfection Clutch, the same company that produced the clutch set I bought from Advance when I worked there.

I bought a Ford slave cylinder for my truck, only to find that it was marked "FTE" which is a Valeo company. The slave cylinders from Luk and O'Reillys are also marked "FTE" from Valeo.

Moral of the story, it doesn't matter where you go, the parts are probably produced by the same manufacturers/rebuilders. Buying aftermarket auto parts is a 50/50 chance that you may get something that works fine, or you may get something that doesn't work at all.

Buying parts from Ford at least gets you a little more assurance that the parts will last longer than the aftermarket parts, but I've been through three Ford cam synchronizers in the time I've owned my Ranger, and I've been through a Motorcraft oil pressure switch as well. Even the factory parts aren't guaranteed.

I'd agree with Shaun.

Rebuilds are a crapshoot, with no brand standing out as better or more reliable. (I'm not talking about a local auto-electric shop that does their own bench work)

I'd really like to get a couple of each and tear them down to see if commutators are cleaned up and undercut, if windings are burnt, etc...
But I don't care enough to be bothered anymore.

I buy new Chinese from J&N, DB Electrical or whatever.
They all seem to work out of the box and last long enough,
No need to deal with brick and mortar, no core to return. (In fact, now I do have a core I can walk in with if things get that desperate)

The one thing I am real picky about is the sensors on the EFI systems. My son went damn near crazy on his 1986 F150, 5.0L EFI after installing a Standard products TPS. The idle throttle setting on these is a voltage value and has a tight tolerance, if the voltage at idle is too high, the EEC decides it is time to open the EGR valve. The result is the open EGR valve causes the idle rpm to drop so the EEC closes the EGR valve. Since these systems have a vacuum and a vent valve the solenoid valves chatter as the engine surges up and down.

We replaced it with a Motorcraft TPS, problem solved.

Thanks Gary!  Interestingly enough I shared my story with the manager of a nearby Advance Autoparts and he told me the same thing; they have a return rate /warranty call about of 60-70% on those alternators. He stated that despite they’re “rebuilt” the quality is just not there.