thewished

Mine started on fire because it went bad and shorted... at 218,900 miles... scared the living hell out of me right after I put the tranny in and headgasket... The black wire comming out of the box is what started on fire, luckily I smelt something and was going to check the oil anyway and a 2 foot flame shot out. A pitcher of water later and the flame was out but my alternator was red hot, and I didn't feel like a remanufactured would rid me of those thoughts so I went brand new and it only cost $160 no core charge.

Fueling around

I rebuilt mine at 140k miles. The brush pack was not worn enough to replace, but for $5 and as long as I was there.... Slip ring has some nice grooves, but I turned it smooth and plenty of meat left.
Shop were I got my parts said the slip ring is often the cause of alternator troubles.
I rebuilt mine due to charging problems, but it turned out to be a bad cell in one battery.

Buddy of mine had his go out this fall. A 96 with 290k mile

steveh1155

Mine went at 255K - it didn't give me any warning that it was about to go, was charging just fine until it suddenly quit. I was in a hurry and close to a salvage yard so just bought one from a gasser for 50 bucks.

m.rehme

I changed mine out at around 240,000 miles.
It was needing to be rebuilt, volt gage on dash was going up and down when driving and a bearing was noisy, put on a lifetime high output one purchased on e-bay, they come out of Dallas/Ft.Worth cost around $200.

12valvetom

I got 192,000 and i had a plow and we used my truck to jump start our dump trucks and other equipment alot.

chainzaw

Sounds like mine has the lowest record of 133,000 miles. I had just bought the truck and that night was on a date driving to Sacramento when the alt started over changing 18+ volts. Dealer ended up replacing it for free although i didn't buy an extended warranty. I was thankful for that.

ProspectorTim

On the one hand, I want to keep this one going as long as I can, cheap; but then, 200 amps for less than $200 has got me re-thinking my options.

Yahoo didn't turn up anything obvious for me. Please PM me or post a name or URL when you get it figured out.

cowboy_trucker

I got 220,000 km and its still good

Crimedog

I got 170K on mine before it gave up the ghost. I drove 300 miles on just the batteries though, it was nice to have a 12 valve at that point! Had just enough juice left by the time I made it home to keep the converter locked up. $10 brushes and she was back on the road.