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Driving for Christmas, after the first stop, as we were about to get back on the interstate, we got a charging system warning. I was actually quite pleased with the Taurus; the status indicator said "check charging system" and the battery light came on, and it buzzed. (When I lost the alternator in our Escort, the first I knew of it was when the tachometer stopped functioning.)
We got a new alternator, which got us on our way within a few hours.
I'd like to put in a plug for the Richmond, Kentucky Ford dealer here. They got us in in the middle of a busy weekday and we were on our way in less than three hours from when we got dropped off. (It also confirmed my conviction to always have my AAA membership up to date.) They were fast, they had an alternator in stock, and they fixed a couple of other things with the car (headlight).
With the looking at the alternator, and the recent picture that
I blogged of the generator belt in the airplane. So here's a picture
of the serpentine belt in the Taurus that I took today:
This is looking down the right side of the engine bay (the engine is
transfersely mounted). The pulley in the upper right marked with a
yellow dot is the power steering pump. Below it, mounted with the
blue dot, is air-conditioning compressor pulley. In the upper left of
the photo, marked by the cyan (light blue) dot is the alternator;
that's kind of on top. I believe the lowest
pulley marked with the red dot is the drive pulley on the end of the
crankshaft, so by process of elimination the one on the left with the
purple dot is the pulley for the water pump.
So as far as I can tell, the two grey pulleys in the middle marked with grey dots are idlers. They're smaller than the others, the back side of the belt runs against them.