MAXTOUT

Yeah, my damn alternator caught on fire yesterday. I found out that my alternator was shot, so I pulled it in my garage to replace it. When I popped my hood there was flames inside the alternator. I lukily had a fire extinguisher in my garage so it was out quick. Has anyone every had this happen? I was shocked.
tED

DhaMax

thats never heard of, for maximas. Do u know if it was factory alternator or replaced, if u bought the car used??

patel_anu

i have a 97 and my alternator started smoking but didn't catch on fire but i didn't have it replaced and it works kinda fine right now, just a little humming sound,

farm boy

More than likely, the bearings failed. The resulting friction can start a fire. . . which melts wires. . . which starts more fires. . .
I've seen this happen twice.

2DMax

iTrader: (2)

Did you know it was bad, or was this your first clue?

diesel9119

yup.. had it happen to me over the summer.... i started the car and my gauges were acting funny... lost all power to my system and then i was like... something is wrong here... popped the hood and no sooner saw smoke pouring from the alternator... (sitting in the blockbuster parking lot).... after i managed to get the small fire out, i had my car towed home, and changed the alternator... by the way dude... the alternator is freakin' expensive for our cars....

MAXTOUT

attn: patel_anu,
My car was making a humming/whining noise before this happened. You should definatly be very careful. It would suck to have an alternator go up in flames when you don't have an extinguisher handy.
I am guessing that the bearings failed since it was making that noise, and it just burned up. The noise I heard was the first warning I got that it was going bad.
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milabomb

whining noise huh? Shoot...I recently bought used 95 GLE w/ 58K on it and it makes a low whining noise - not very pronounced. It's definately louder when I turn on the a/c and/or sometimes when I accelerate. I don't always hear it though and its not very loud-don't hear it at all if the radio is on...

Am I in for a fire? How many miles on your max? thx in advance

MAXTOUT

If you want to know if your alternator is making noise, use a 2-3' piece of small diameter hose to listen to the alternator. This allows you to single out the noise from all the others under your hood. I am not a pro-mechanic, therefore I do not know that a whining alternator is neccessarily a bad alternator. You may want to ask your mechanic if it needs to be replaced. It would suck to replace a ~$230 alternator if it is not needed.
My Maxima is a 97 SE with 61.5K miles.
I noticed on my 95 max that the flex section of the factory y-pipe was worn a bit and made a low whining noise when the car had been running for a while. You may want to check your exhaust for noises as well.
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rogjo30

This has happened to my 98' Maxima on 11/1/01. I started my car it vibrated a little, as i was backing it out of my driveway, i noticed some smoke coming from under the hood. When i popped the hood i saw there was a flame in the alternator, i used my hose to put it out. It also was making a whinning sound after that. I took my car to the nearest Nissan dealer. They ran some tests and said after using midtonics found charging system incident and excessive ripple from within alternator. They replaced the alt assembly. Thank God i purchased the extended warranty for my car. The alt is expensive.