Hi Peeps!

[aikidodoka]

I am a 26 year old guy living on Oahu Hawaii. I have a 1992 toyota camry v6 LE. I have hyperground wires, msd superconducting spark plug wires, iridium plugs, k and n oil filter, run mobile 1 fully synthetic oil in the car, have a short ram intake, the best stock tires I could find Michelin AA rated tires temp A, etc, and I have stock exhaust system. It really is a great car. Has about 134k miles on it. I have been having some problems with it lately and not sure how to fix or even where to start.

My car keeps blowing out alternators. I think it might be because I used to jump start a lot of peoples cars with my vehicle and maybe some of the electrical system in my car is malfunctioning now causing the alternators to go out prematurely. My neighbor is a mechanic and he says to put a brand new one in, but I don't know. I would think that out of the 3 refurbished alternators that I have purchased, that one of them should have been good. I don't want to buy a brand new alternator just to have it blow.

Does anyone have any idea as to what could be causing this?

[MR2Jedi]

Welcome to Toyota Nation I'm from Ewa Beach. Living on the mainlaind now.
I think it's safe to say that something else is blowing out your Alts. Prolly not faulty alts.You mentioned the hyperground wires. Were they installed just prior to these alts blowing? You've got a short or bad ground somewhere.
Any, I recommend you check out the Camry section of this forum. Hopefully those guys over there can help you anylize your problem. Good luck..

[aikidodoka]

12Jun08


The hyperground wires are several years old. I installed them way before my car started blowing alternators. The first alternator went out just after I bought my car in 2002. The second was after I jumped a lady's car to help her out. The third when I helped another guy jump his car. And it's not like it happened immediately after I jumped their vehicles either. It more or less happened several weeks after the fact. I never jumped another car again. I just bought one of those portable jumpers instead. My car seems to be blowing them more frequently now. This will be the second one. So my car has seen with a lot of alternators in a very short period of time. I am wondering if it is not the new stereo system and amplifier that I have had installed by a circuit city store. I am trying to keep expenses down to a minimum. I don't even know where I can take it to get tested for something like this.

I was also researching last night and read a couple of articles saying that if there was too much demand on the alternator like devices always draining the battery that alternators don't last very long. What do you guys think about high performance alternators?

[MR2Jedi]

Hhmm? It's prolly safe to rule out the hyperground. But at this point, I'd be looking at the Stereo system. It may be drawing to many amps. If your stereo system draws more amps than the alt can supply while running the other common cars systems, you MAY NEED a higher amp alt. The stereo installers should have said something-I would think...
Who knows, they may have cross connected or shorted something. Maybe take the car back to them and have them check it out. Doesn't seem a coincindence that this would all happen after the stereo install.
Best of Luck!