What's the normal lifespan of an alternator? (Gen 3)

Like so many others, my Jimny squeals on start-up. Frequently on cold / wet days and especially when under electrical load (I can "fix" it by turning off the heated windows..!). So the belt is slipping, which could indicate a few things.

First being that the belt simply needs tightening. I went out and had a look, seemed tight enough, but I still tried to tighten it further anyway (annoyingly fiddly job but did it). Problem still there. The condition of the belt itself looks fine and the battery was replaced just a few months ago (before I purchased the vehicle).

So that leaves me thinking it could be a pulley or the alternator / alternator bearings. Since it's only on start-up that to me says it's maybe the alternator "pinching" as it tries to re-generate the lost energy from the start-up?

Given all this, what is a normal life expectancy of a Gen 3 Jimny alternator? For reference mine is a 2007 ~75k miles. I'm thinking it's probably long in the tooth enough that it could be what's ailing it. Especially given I have a head unit and dashcam up front drawing a bit more power.

Hmm, actually, while I am still interested in the thread title, I dug through my service history. I can see the aux belt was last done ~5 years ago and the power steering ~4 years ago so I'm gonna replace both of them before worrying about my alternator.

The car has only done 20k miles in those 5 years so would explain why the belt looks in reasonable condition but it has been long enough that it could just be degraded.

As you say it is also worth looking at the pulley. Shine a light on it when it is running and in most cases you can see a clear wobble in the pulley

Martin

Micro vee belts like the jimny uses dont need nearly as much tension as a standard vee belt. (The AC / PS belt just uses a spring tensioner) An enthusiastic young mechanic apprentice may have cranked the daylights out of the alternator belt on your last service and given the nose bearing on the alternator a hard time, causing the bearings to fail prematurely. 
I have this same problem on my other vehicle, a 1984 Chevrolet C20 with a 6.2 v8 diesel. It just uses a standard vee belt, and the way its set up the vibrations/ harmonics from the big diesel means that to tighten the belt where it won't squeal /slip meant I was changing nose bearings once a year at least. I swapped the nose bearing (after a bit of machining) with a double row bearing and so far seems to have helped. Chevrolet went to microvee belts later for this reason. 

​​​​​​If you're confident with mechanical stuff I can't see why you couldn't replace just the bearings if that's the issue. I've haven't had a jimny one apart so others could confirm, most others I've had in bits used fairly common bearings.  Assuming of course, your alternator is functioning as its meant to electrically. 

I have a similar issue with belt squeal at start up with a heavy load. I tried changing the belt but that didn't help. I think the belt routing is a bit marginal. There is not much belt wrap angle around the pulley which makes it prone to slipping.

If it's more of a chirping or a screaming noise it could be the idler pulley bearing. Offer it rotating assemblies a touch with an engineers stethoscope and it will become apparent where the noise is from. A long bar pressed to the ear also works. Be careful though as with the engine running it will want to grab at loose clothes and unwary hands.

I've ordered my 2 replacement belts from eBay, current plan is to try swap them in at the weekend!

@Lambert

If it's more of a chirping or a screaming noise it could be the idler pulley bearing. 

It's both a chirping and a screaming noise Basically if it's a colder / wetter day and I start the car and sit still - especially with high draw electrical components on like heated mirrors & headlights - then it'll quietly chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp. When I then put it into gear and start driving it screeches like a banshee for maybe the first 30 seconds of the journey. My usual response is to let my foot off the accelerator and roll a little (turn off heated mirrors if on) which makes the noise go away. Sometimes after doing that it immediately fixes it for the rest of the journey, other times I have to do a few "cycles" of screech-and-roll before it goes away.

What never happens is screeching after a long drive or randomly 5 minutes into a drive. It's exclusively to do with start-ups, presumably because the alternator works harder to recharge the battery.

Oh another thing... I've seen "uprated" alternators for sale on eBay (e.g. tinyurl.com/ebay-alternator-jimny ) that claim to output 100A as opposed to the standard 80A. Is this tosh or do they actually work well as an upgrade? Saw some other threads where people put in as much as 150A alternators from other vehicles but that required some more advanced modifications than a straight swap.

If you're getting belt squeal with a standard alternator, a bigger one will make it worse.
I remember seeing an alternator upgrade someone did on a Jimny a while back where they fitted an idler wheel to increase the belt wrap. Even then it's pretty marginal to run a 100+ amp alternator on a small 4pk belt. Most larger alternators come with a 6pk pulley but to fit a 6pk belt you would have to change all of the other pulleys, which is a pretty major job.

As I recall, my gen 3 used to screech a bit on start up, so I tightened the belts a bit, then after a while the screech and a vibration happened whilst accelerating too, then one day all the noise went away, along with the outer half of the crank pulley and the belts.....

@LesNewell - That's a really good point I hadn't really considered! I guess there's only so much juice you can get out of a 4PK belt with no idle pulley to imrpove grip etc.

@facade - That's pretty disturbing about the crank pulley disintegrating!! What was the vibration like? I have found that I sometimes get a low rumbling vibration when sitting in Drive but with my foot on the brake (worse in Reverse). Once I start moving it goes away. I thought it would be the "transmission / gearbox mount" but even after replacing that it's still there. I get a slight rumble when I'm idling and use the window switches too lol but I think that's just the alternator being worked.

The vibration was only slight, but I could feel it through the pedal.
Mine was manual, and it happened when pulling away just before it was time to change up.

The pulley is incredibly poorly designed, tensioning the alternator belt tries to rip the pulley apart, and is resisted by tensioning the power steering belt.
Grab the outer flange of the pulley and try and rip it off the car, if there is any movement whatsoever, it is time for a new one.

Here is my sketch of a section through the pulley to show what I mean.