Hi,
Title says it all. Every two years, "brownie" (my volvo) claims another 70amp autozone alternator. This time, after replacing it, the car is not charging.

Every time I try something different or disconnect a bunch of stuff and take it back to autozone and have them load test it, they say "yup, seems to be charging fine" and without fail, the gauges stop working before I get home and usually the car starts sputtering because the battery is dead - with or without headlights/heater/fuses in or on.

I suspected the alternator (about a week ago, before replacing it with current one), because the car was losing power with headlights and heater - the alternator just couldn't keep up. If I sat and let it charge, then drive, it'd be fine, but the old alternator just couldn't keep up. On a long drive from Knoxville to Nashville, I had no problems after about an hour of fiddling with it - next day problem is back.

For good measure, I had the less than a year old diehard battery cycle tested at sears - it checks out.

Obviously there's something wrong with the new alternator?

The last thing I'm going to try before taking it to someone is replace the charging lead off of the alternator. But I have to charge the car back up to make it over to autozone.