Noticed a ton of people replacing alternators when it's just a bad ground

I was helping a buddy with his 2010 F-150 that kept dying on him, turns out the ground strap from the engine block to the frame was completely corroded and loose. Three different shops quoted him for a new alternator and battery before I took a look. Has anyone else seen this get missed more often than it should?

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2 Comments

spencer_chen65mo ago

Whoa, THREE shops? That's INSANE. I've seen this exact thing a dozen times on older trucks where they just slap a shiny new alternator on without even checking the basics first. It's like they're allergic to a simple multimeter test or looking down for a corroded ground strap. Cleaned that strap on my buddy's Silverado a few months back and it went from flickering lights to perfect in ten minutes flat.

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verafoster5mo ago

People just want to throw parts at a problem instead of actually looking at what's wrong. It's the same thing with your car battery terminals being crusty or a fuse blown, they skip right past the cheap fix and go straight for the expensive one. I've seen it at home too, like when a light fixture stops working and someone buys a whole new lamp before checking if a bulb is just loose or the switch is bad. Mechanics should know better, but a lot of them get into this habit of swapping the big parts because it's easier money than cleaning a ground strap for ten minutes. The multimeter is your friend, nobody uses it enough.

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