Freelander 2 (LR2) New Alternator Faulty after one year.

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Kanuri

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I have 2012 LR2 Manual Diesel. Last year had an engine battery light coming On intermittent when driving. Eventually while on the road had permanent battery light and the engine loosing power. Took to garage found alternator faulty-Was told the alternator shaft was just spinning and not rotating inside alternator. We replaced with a new one and Car has been ok since then.
Now this week, I got the battery light On staying throughout with Engine running normal. However, I drove the car to the garage, and before I got there got the battery run flat. We checked the alternator and found it is rotating and stopping intermittently with engine running. It's is not charging battery at all.

Any ideas what causing the alternator to behave this way? Why would a new alternator would fail within a year ?
 
I suspect the original alternator may have been OK (you don't mention the mileage) as generally they do large mileages, with 150k or more not being uncommon. However the alternator overrun pulley can and does fail. Sometimes it simply locks up, forcing the alternator to spin directly with the engine in the same way as a fixed alternator pulley. This doesn't cause charging issues, but can create vibration at lower RPM, and causes accelerated wear of the tensioner and belt.
On the odd occasion, the overrun pulley slips, so failing to drive the alternator at a suitable speed to generate the power needed by the vehicle. What you described suggests the pulley was at fault, not the alternator itself. A good garage should have identified this in a few minutes, and simply replaced the pulley with a new replacement of reputable quality.
Replacing the alternator for a pulley is completely unnecessary, and just laziness on the part of the garage.
However as it appears the alternator has failed again, I suspect they put a cheap replacement on which has obviously failed, possibly the pulley again, which unfortunately cheap pulleys do. Of course it's also possible the garage swapped the old pulley to a replacement alternator (cheap alternators don't always come with a new pulley), in which case your garage is really lacking in skills and to be avoided IHO.

Also how is the battery? The Freelander 2 is very power hungry, and batteries simply don't last, 4 years being about normal before they're past their best. A failing battery will cause the alternator to work much harder, shortening the alternator life.
 
Last edited:
Thank you all for the replies and ideas. I did take it back to the same garage and asked them to investigate the alternator before replacing another. We took it to a specialist shop together with the old one. -luckily I had kept it😀. Turn out the alternator bearings had failed.The 1st was the inner bearing. They replaced the bearing and bench tested ok. I wonder what's caused the bearing to fail twice??
The car has done about 95k miles. Battery is charging ok but I am still investigating as I drive again.

Now I have another problem. The coolant is leaking. Traced it to EGR cooler. My loyalty is really being tested 🤔
 
Nodge68 said:
I suspect the original alternator may have been OK (you don't mention the mileage) as generally they do large mileages, with 150k or more not being uncommon. However the alternator overrun pulley can and does fail. Sometimes it simply locks up, forcing the alternator to spin directly with the engine in the same way as a fixed alternator pulley. This doesn't cause charging issues, but can create vibration at lower RPM, and causes accelerated wear of the tensioner and belt.
On the odd occasion, the overrun pulley slips, so failing to drive the alternator at a suitable speed to generate the power needed by the vehicle. What you described suggests the pulley was at fault, not the alternator itself. A good garage should have identified this in a few minutes, and simply replaced the pulley with a new replacement of reputable quality.
Replacing the alternator for a pulley is completely unnecessary, and just laziness on the part of the garage.
However as it appears the alternator has failed again, I suspect they put a cheap replacement on which has obviously failed, possibly the pulley again, which unfortunately cheap pulleys do. Of course it's also possible the garage swapped the old pulley to a replacement alternator (cheap alternators don't always come with a new pulley), in which case your garage is really lacking in skills and to be avoided IHO.

Also how is the battery? The Freelander 2 is very power hungry, and batteries simply don't last, 4 years being about normal before they're past their best. A failing battery will cause the alternator to work much harder, shortening the alternator life.
Click to expand...
Nodge, thank you for all the info. very appreciated 👍 My first alternator was a Bosch. Original from manufacturer and had some 95k miles without a problem. I believe however it killed my original battery when it's started misbehaving and I didn't notice early enough to rectify. I Replaced battery this early this year.
 
Kanuri said:
Nodge, thank you for all the info. very appreciated 👍 My first alternator was a Bosch. Original from manufacturer and had some 95k miles without a problem. I believe however it killed my original battery when it's started misbehaving and I didn't notice early enough to rectify. I Replaced battery this early this year.
Click to expand...
Normally a failing battery will cause the alternator to work harder, which can cause them fail sooner. Bearing failure can be attributed to the over run pulley slipping (if it was the front bearing), as the pulley can get hot when it slips which burns the lubricant out of the bearing.
 
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