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I have repaired several alternators over the years and faults have included worn bearings, fried diodes, iffy voltage regulators, burnt terminals etc. A particulary poor alternator was one on a friends Mitsubishi Starion which had failed because of a design fault. Its a long time ago now but I seem to remember that the three windings from the stator were bolted to the diode assembly in a very poor way as plastic was part of the "sandwich" that was clamping the connections together. The plasticity of the plastic caused the clamping pressure to be lost and burnt contacts occurred. Reverse engineering the job was not very difficult but owing to the limited space "thin nuts" (AKA half nuts) had to be used. I had copper braid and heat resistant woven glass sleeving so everything was to hand. Doing the job was rather like model-making as the parts were fairly small but at least the job could be done indoors in the warm. The new set-up was done with no plastic in the "sandwich" but the old plastic was still used just to locate the terminals. Done this way the car ammeter always stayed around zero when the engine was running as all loads were balanced. The bad design might not have been Mitsubishi's fault as I seem to remember that the alternator had been reconditioned.
Another troublesome vehicle was a Land Rover 300 TDi. The fault was oxidised strands of wire inside a crimped lug. (The alternator output lug) Such faults can be found by feeling the wires when the alternator is on full load and any warmth needs investigating. Of course on a great many cars the machinery is crammed in so tight that its hard to get near it.
Present austerity car is a Pug 306 HDi and the alternator voltage goes up and down like a fiddlers elbow! There is a receipt in the car documents that states "New alternator £165". Clearly the previous owner who was female regularly got taken to the cleaners. The last straw was a worn or maladjusted stop light switch hence the scrap-man was called in.
Good luck with the alternator, as to spares these can often be bought online as the days of having a really good parts shop in every town are long gone.
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