My girlfriends mother has a 2003 Ford Taurus with the 3.0 OHV motor.

She drove it to dinner last night and couldn't get it to start on the way back home, dead...She got a jump from AAA and got home. Tried to start it 1hr later to go to the store and its dead again. I told her alternator. I took a half day of work and drove up there to replace it for her and Advance auto parts could not test the alternator. I said ok screw it just get me another one...apparantly at least in the Spring Hill area, alternators for the 3.0 OHV model are extremely hard to find! Even the dealer did not have it in stock, special order or some crap.

So I finally get to an autozone that has one and he gets it for me. It matched up, everything was ok..put the new one in the car. Well during the mean time, I had hooked my battery charger up to the factory battery and it didn't even take a charge. So I jumped her car and it started up, and I let the car run for about 10 minutes to hopefully give some charge to the battery because I figured maybe my battery charger died.

I follow my girlfriend in her moms car to get something to eat just in case, we drove like 10 minutes away, and come back out..same problem. So I take out the battery there and get the battery tested, advance's machine says the battery needs to be replaced. We get a new battery and the car fired right up...I left to go back to tampa and she took the car home. Her mom took the car to pick up her younger sister at school and it still worked.

I get a phone call at work saying "The battery light came on again and I just checked the recipt and it says for 2000 Ford Taurus."

I specifically told the guy 2003 Taurus with the OHV motor at Autozone and he got it for me. I even said wow I'm surprised you guys have it because no one has the OHV alternator and he said there was only one call number for it...so I didn't think much about it at the time because I was crunched for time and had to get back to Tampa.

I got off work and told her to start the car and it fired right up again.

My questions are:

1)Why is the battery light still on?
2)Do 2000 and 2003 alternators interchange? I looked on autzone's website and their part numbers are different, 130amp and 110amp models was offered in 2000 and only 110amp was listed for 2003.

Anything to worry about? I can't think of anything else that would be draining the battery because it had no shorts that I could see and the terminal wires were really clean. Car has like 50k on it.

 

It's possible that you just got a defective replacement alternator. If the alternator bolted up to the engine with no problem I wouldn't worry about it. If I'm reading you right, it looks like you got a higher output alternator and thats not going to hurt anything at all.

It wouldn't be the first time a remanufactured alternator took a dump shortly after installation. Take it back to the parts store and get another.

 

Well I bought the right one from a Ford Dealer today, they had to special order the thing. I'm going to return that one back to AZ tomorrow and hope to god they give me the core back for Ford's charge because THEY screwed up..they have already sent the factory one back.

Can anything else cause the system not to charge?

 

Since you replaced the original one with the AZ one and it worked for awhile, I'd think that wiring and all is ok. We don't often have to look into wiring to fix a no charge condition. Still just seems like a bad luck in getting a defective alternator the first time.

 

It was the wrong alternator even though my test light said it was sending juice out. I put in the correct one from the dealer and the light went away and when the engine runs now, it sounds normal instead of anemic.

Autozone gave me the money back no questions asked because they screwed up and are also getting my original core back from the warehouse so I can take it back to the dealer and get the $75 bucks back.

Thanks for your help.