As a lifelong Lincoln owner, I finally made my way over to the Cadillac side this last week. I purchased a 96 Sedan DeVille 4.6 Northstar with 165,000 miles. The car is absolutely beautiful. One owner all records kept and maintained properly. And for $2400.00 a deal I couldn't refuse (or should I have?) Last night while driving a message on the instrument panel came up "BATTERY NO CHARGE". This morning I drove maybe 3 miles from home and the same message came up then all the lights on the dash started to flash then the car died. The car was towed to the dealer, who told me I needed a new alternator. Price quoted was $586.00 parts and labor!! Does this seem in line for an alternator replacement for a Cadillac? Had one replaced in my '98 Mark VIII for less than $250.00. I'm not a mechanic, but I can change the oil in my car. Is this something I can fix myself? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Replaced mine on 96 Deville it comes out from the bottom after removing a cover plate, panel and fan tight fit so protect the rad with wood panel or something. my cost was $160. for rebuilt unit. sts96

Sounds about right for the job ahead. If you have some car knowledge and a day, you can do it yourself. Alot to remove and may as well change out both belts if they are bad. You may also consider changing the tensioner too. If you decide to do it yourself. Go to your closest sears and pick you up a shorty 15mm open end wrench. Will be very helpful for the bolt next to the exhaust manifold.

The two people who have already posted are absolutely correct. I bought a 96 Deville Concours and within a year the alternator died. Luckily, I was leaving the Cadillac dealer (they should have diagnosed the problem though) and was able to coast down a hill to an Advanced Auto. Picked up an Alternator for $120, and had a mechanic friend put it on for $100. However, there are 3, maybe 4 plates to remove, and that last bolt near the exhaust manifold is a pain in the rear. All in all, the new alternator works like a charm, and only took 4 hours to put on. I would NOT do this myself, as you will probably kill yourself out of frustration.

Patients is the key. Not that bad, just time consuming. I do aslo recommend having a second person there to hel you line up the Alt. and the bolt next to the manifold. it is tricky to get it started after the other bolts are in.

Wasn't easy, but I did it. Took about a day and a half to replace, but i want to thank those who responded.. Your advice was very helpfull in replacing the alternator. (although, i would still like to ask the person or persons who designed the engine layout to step outside). Everything was working just fine for about 2 weeks after replacing the alternator and serpantine belt. Then I noticed that the batt volts were dropping from around 14.5 to 11 or 10volts. Finally the battery would no longer start the car, so I replaced it as well. However i'm still running around 10 to 11.5 volts. The alternator I purchased was an AC delco alternator from my local cadillac dealer. Any ideas of what might be the problem?? PLEASE dont tell me i'm going to have to replace the alternator again. For the sake of eveyone that lives with me.

did u replace it urself? Its really not a tough job but I for some odd reason did it from the top :thepan: i removed the fans etc. and then the alternator then i slid it to the right side and it came out throught he top which wasn't too hard abotu a 2-3 hour job i didnt time it

It could be a wire issue maybe the positive wires are bad or something causing the low voltage and they could possibly also cause the alternator problems.

I think the battery and alt. problems are related have it checked out at a dealership regardless of whether u did it or someone else the alt. should still have a warranty so it's not a big deal.

The brand at least in my opinion will never guarantee success unless your going into performance parts.I have always preferred cheaper autozone parts that have the same or better warrantys rather than a ac delco part which is usually a minimum of $50 more with the same warranty.

I don't like spending so much for ac delco parts when you won't even get half of that part's value back when you decide to sell that car.

before you go to the dealer check the connections and see if they are tight including the alt red wire int he back of it that may be the cause and the other thing could be the belt is slipping if your tensioner is too old or worn which it probably is so if the tensioner is not working the belt slips causing low alt. rpms and low voltage this can be often overlooked

Let us know what happens it always helps for future reference I myself have a 96 deville.

one last question was the tensioner extremely hard to move? Mine was incredibly hard to move and I had a 18" breaker bar on it but it's a tough one.

If you moved your tensioner with little force then the dealer can check it out to see if it's weak.

First things first...when replacing an alternator, the battery should be fully charged. Sometimes a bad battery will make an alternator work overtime and since it's not getting paid time and a half, it will bite the dust.

I'm not sure and you didn't mention if the battery was charged after you replaced the alternator (by a charger--not by letting the alternator charge it). If you let the alternator charge up the battery, I would suspect the alternator. I've seen it happen more than a fair amount of times when I used to sell parts. I would always test alternators on the bench before selling them and a week later, they would come back and it turned out that they didn't listen to my advice or read the instructions/warnings that came with the alternator. Now please don't take that as me blaming you if you didn't charge up the battery--just saying it is a real possibility for the alternator to need to be replaced again.

Also, another possibility is the positive battery post. About 20-30% of the AC Delco batteries that people brough in as cores had the positive post rotted out. There is a pretty big problem with Delco batteries and corrosion, and when you go to take out the positive cable, the sidepost screw is seized into the cable terminal and the battery terminal. If this was the case with your Delco (which could have been already replaced before this last one), I would check the positive terminal fully. My 97 has 3 wires coming out of it. One runs to the alternator, one runs under the intake manifold to the starter, and the third runs along the front of the car under a cover and up to the power distribution block on the drivers side (lower left corner of the distribution block).

If the battery is charged up enough, you can have Advance / AutoZone do free tests on the car. If the battery is too low, the test results should be thrown out the window. The other option is finding out if you know anyone with a clamp on ammeter. Put it on the wire running to the alternator to see if the alternator is putting any juice back into the system.

I would not recommend starting the car and disconnecting the positive cable. Some people do this, but I believe that if the alternator has the correct short in the diode bridge, over 20V can be sent to all the electronics and having a battery in parallel will buffer that voltage.

Good luck and post up with what you find out.

The alternator in my 98 DeVille went bad at 78,000 miles. My Caddy dealer did the repair work for $469. Happily I bought an extended repair warranty so I only paid my $50 deductable. :thumbsup:

took 4 hours???? Damn.....take out the cooling fan....pop the panel off of the bottom with the 4- 10mm bolts, be sure to take you the 15 on the top of the alternator before lifting it up...if you have mild mechanical skills you can do this in 30-45 minutes