I had my power steering pump replaced in March 2015. When they replaced it, the accessory belt was squealing and they took the blame; they got power steering fluid on the belt and replaced it free of charge after a few days. Now, 4 months later, my alternator has failed. Does anyone think there's any chance a correlation between the power steering fluid mishap and the death of the alternator can be proven?

 

unlikely.

It's obviously hard to say but the best you can do is go and discuss this with them, have them say no, argue some more, and have them replace the alternator at a discounted labor price. I had a similar issue (reversed) where I installed a new alternator on my older Accord and a few weeks later, the power steering pump went out. Coincidence, likely. Proven correlation?: hard to say..

 

Difficult, as 4 months is a pretty long time.

There is a chance they may laugh at you as you walk away.

 

Technically, there is 100% correlation if you consider your car and your car alone.

But given a larger sample body, no you will prove neither correlation or causation given the time frame.

 

as you can see after doing the math there is no way you can prove that it was their fault.

 

Oh, bug off, Faraday

 

where is the math?

 

4th reply down

 

PS fluid is oil so It won't conduct electric or mess up anything inside the alternator. It's unlikely that any work they did would cause it to fail. You can't over-tighten anything or remove/do anything to cause it to happen. The brushes wear out over time.

I would suggest buying a new one and just putting it in yourself. It's like an hour of work that'll save you over $125.