Just happened yesterday evening, right when I was about to park at a local supermarket suddenly a loud screeching? sound could be heard, I opened the hood and there the alternator stood, pulley was not spinning and the belt was turning, so there is the source of the screeching, what causes the alternator to just stop all of a sudden? broken internals?
Had no tools handy so had to cut the belt (oh no, more expense! only solution I found) to carefully drive the birdie home through uncrowded streets before dark(don't know how long the battery would last with headlights on) a couple of long blocks away, couldn't leave it parked there or it would have been towed. Once again, the birdie has not left me on the streets, externals give out but the engine still lives (208,xxx orig. miles)

So now it's sitting waiting to be fixed, should i get a reman. or new alternator or is this problem repairable? How long do alternators usually last? Previous owner had just put it in about 2.5 years ago. Is this problem common? I've only heard about alts going out due to them not chargin anymore but hadn't heard about them getting stuck like my situation.

Thanks for all your help in advance.

 

Seized bearings. Yank it and replace with a good quality parts store stock replacement rebuild- NOT Pep Boys or one of the chain stores. Those rebuilds are notoriously bad. You might get a good one, but you might not. How many times do you want to do the job?