2004 Sebring COnvertible 2.7 Alternator Replacement
 

Hello Sebring Owners,

This evening while driving home, the battery light came on as I was traveling in 2004 Sebring convertible with the 2.7L engine. As it was a rainy night, I pressed on. I believe the alternator failed and forty miles from home all of my indicator lights began coming on beginning with ABS and Traction control. I suspect that the battery was nolonger able to power the electronics.

I have read online two methods for replacing the alternators. One is fairly straight forward and can be done without jacking up the car. The other sounded rather involved and included jacking up the car and removing the A/C compressor.

Can someone give me some insight into how complicated this is? I need to make the repairs in the parking lot that I left the car rather than having it towed to a garage.

Your advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

Answering my own question: For this model with this engine, it is an involved job that includes disconnecting the A/C high pressure valve and compressor clutch. I did not attempt and had it towed to my local shop for a pro to deal with.

Yeah Bill, there aren't many things on a 2.7 that are easy to do. :)

is it different in the newer models... just curious because i got the 3.5L. Coming from a pontiac grand am where I did all the work myself.

Additional update: My mechanic's computer generated quote told him it would take 0.9 hours to change the alternator. He reported it took him three! He insisted on charging me the quote, but says he is going to be very cautious in the future when dealing with Sebrings with this engine.

LOL...ALLDATA time was .6 hours. There is no way I would do it for that. I would maybe go 1.5 just because I am familiar with them but that's it.

Yes and I just couldn't take it anymore. I purchased my '04 Sebring Convertible Limited three years ago with just 11k miles on it. Granted, I have no idea how those first 11,000 treated the car, but I followed all of the scheduled maintenance and really took care of the car from the day I brought it home. The thing hit 75,000 miles a few months ago and it became a nightmare.

While I loved the looks of the car, it had to go as I was going broke trying to maintain it. Four breakdowns in as many months while more than 100 miles from home. Traded it in Monday night on a Hyundai Elantra Touring. I NEVER thought I would buy Korean, but man I had a rough time finding someone who would take the Sebring in trade, despite the fact it was running fine at the time and body and interior were in very good to excellent condition.

Adios 2.7L!

I am not familiar with the 3.5L, but here is, in part, what causes problems with Sebrings with the 2.7L: 1)How tight is it under the hood? What can you readily get to when replacement is necessary? Do you have to remove part of the airconditioning or the intake manifold to get at something that would be a simple replacement on your Grand AM? Since the 3.5L has to be physically larger than the 2.7L, we can only assume that what was hard to do on a 2.7L will be as hard or harder on the 3.5L. 2) How much plastic is used on the engine? As is the case with the infamous water housing assembly on the 2.7L (it is not that it is made out of plastic, it is that it is two pieces of plastic glued together). If you have a lot of plastic, plan on problems.

Just my opinion.

got 94k on the clock of the 01 with 2.7l works great.. all maintenance done its tip top =]

Alternator Replacement
 

I have the 2004 2.7 Sebring convertable and replaced the alternator myself recently. I found that I did not have to disconnect anything to do with the AC. I had to remove the front tire to loosen the belt and move a wire harness out of the way to pull it out. It came out easily. Not a difficult job at all.

I just did it today.

Reading this thread before, I prepared myself a bit to count with some obstacles. I started early in the morning to at least have some daylight left in case it would turn out to be difficult.

Yesterday evening I had finished some tasks already in preparation; took the right wheel off already, took the plastic shield out, just to not having this done early since the forecast said we would have frost in the morning. (Preparation time was about..., let's say 30 minutes.)

Today morning, we had ice. I waited till the sun licked it away, then started taking the serpentine off (20 minutes) and unscrewed the alternator. That was really a pain in the butt since the lower screw was kind of hard to reach with a ratchet; I ended up unscrewing it with a 1/2" American spanner including a ratchet which isn't really the same size like a 13 mm spanner. This task took some time.

The rest was quite easy; disconnecting the cables of the alternator (2 cables, one attached to the plus pole of the alternator by a 13mm nut, the other-one was just some plug, the third from the same wire tree underneath the alternator); I unscrewed the bolt of the oil measuring pin tube and turned the tube aside, then unscrewed the two upper bolts of the alternator. then, to get the old alternator out on the upper space, it took me some time to figure out on how to get it out on that little space I had just freed from cables; I finally pulled up the plastic sticks on the front side which held the cable tree to make room; then turned the unscrewed alternator a bit, and it was out.

Same way to put it in. But: Make sure to remember how you got the old alternator out; that saves you some time.

My total working time as a bloody beginner for this task was about 2 hours. If you are experienced to it you maybe do it in about an hour, or a bit more.

I want to point out to the reason why I felt obliged to do this repair: Many of you have already stated that the Sebrings start making a grinding sound after more than 65,000 miles when they're cold, which disappears after the engine is warmed up. Same it was in my situation, but because I usually drive less than 5 miles a piece it really had made me sick, driving that car on a daily base only for this short distance; people were looking at me already... :-( After I already had exchanged the tensioner a few weeks ago and it didn't stop, my only guess was that the front ball bearing of the alternator had been given up. --Which was the reason.

So, now next step is to find the appropriate ball bearings for the alternator, since it's not dead yet.

I'll keep you updated as soon as I've found a way to replace them.

edit: Since I was editing this thread for some typos I guess I also should include some keywords to make it less tough to find the thread in case the same indication comes to one or another of us:

- Keywords:
Grinding sound Sebring JR 2.7
Serpentine replacement 2.7
Alternator replacement 2.7
Idler Pulley 2.7

Please add keywords in case you think it might belong to equal or comparable repairs.

Cheers
LGP

(edited: keywords, typos)

I just did it today.

Reading this thread before, I prepared myself a bit to count with some obstacles. I started early in the morning to at least have some daylight left in case it would turn out to be difficult.

Yesterday evening I had finished some tasks already in preparation; took the right wheel off already, took the plastic shield out, just to not having this done early since the forecast said we would have frost in the morning. (Preparation time was about..., let's say 30 minutes.)

Today morning, we had ice. I waited till the sun licked it away, then started taking the serpentine off (20 minutes) and unscrewed the alternator. That was really a pain in the butt since the lower screw was kind of hard to reach with a ratchet; I ended up unscrewing it with a 1/2" American spanner including a ratchet which isn't really the same size like a 13 mm spanner. This task took some time.

The rest was quite easy; disconnecting the cables of the alternator (2 cables, one attached to the plus pole of the alternator by a 13mm nut, the other-one was just some plug, the third from the same wire tree underneath the alternator); I unscrewed the bolt of the oil measuring pin tube and turned the tube aside, then unscrewed the two upper bolts of the alternator. then, to get the old alternator out on the upper space, it took me some time to figure out on how to get it out on that little space I had just freed from cables; I finally pulled up the plastic sticks on the front side which held the cable tree to make room; then turned the unscrewed alternator a bit, and it was out.

Same way to put it in. But: Make sure to remember how you got the old alternator out; that saves you some time.

My total working time as a bloody beginner for this task was about 2 hours. If you are experienced to it you maybe do it in about an hour, or a bit more.

I want to point out to the reason why I felt obliged to do this repair: Many of you have already stated that the Sebrings start making a grinding sound after more than 65,000 miles when they're cold, which disappears after the engine is warmed up. Same it was in my situation, but because I usually drive less than 5 miles a piece it really had made me sick, driving that car on a daily base only for this short distance; people were looking at me already... :-( After I already had exchanged the tensioner a few weeks ago and it didn't stop, my only guess was that the front ball bearing of the alternator had been given up. --Which was the reason.

So, now next step is to find the appropriate ball bearings for the alternator, since it's not dead yet.

I'll keep you updated as soon as I've found a way to replace them.

edit: Since I was editing this thread for some typos I guess I also should include some keywords to make it less tough to find the thread in case the same indication comes to one or another of us:

- Keywords:
Grinding sound Sebring JR 2.7
Serpentine replacement 2.7
Alternator replacement 2.7
Idler Pulley 2.7

Please add keywords in case you think it might belong to equal or comparable repairs.

Cheers
LGP

(edited: keywords, typos)

...oops... twice..