So I looked up the real failure rate on reman alternators and now I'm questioning my whole system

I was doing a stack of paperwork the other day and decided to dig into some data from a parts supplier in Ohio. They track every alternator they sell for 12 months, and the failure rate on remans was like 14%, which is way higher than I figured. I always thought new units failed like 1-2% and remans maybe 5%, but seeing that number made me reconsider if I should push customers toward new ones more often. Is the price difference really worth it for them, or are we all just gambling on these rebuilds? Has anyone else looked at actual return data from their own shop and changed their recommendation style?

1 comments

1 Comment

carter.hugo12d ago

Tbh, that 14% number lines up with what I saw from a regional distributor back in 2021, but they broke it down by who did the rebuild. The remans that came from the big national chain failed twice as often as the ones from the local guy who actually tests them under load. So the real question isn't reman vs new, it's whether you know your supplier's QC or you're just buying from the cheapest catalog. I had a buddy who tracked his own sales for a year and his reman failure rate was 6%, because he only used one outfit that vacuum-tests every unit. Might be worth splitting your data by source before you overhaul your whole pitch.