But wouldn’t the battery have been drains by the bad alternator?!?! That cannot be fixed.
I’d call your regular shop and ask if this situation can be resolved by charging the battery, I think that’s plausible. If not, ask if they would let you “borrow” any functional battery to use briefly. Deliver that to the shop holding your car, have them install the alternator since they’ve got you in a bind, and have them swap batteries. Then drive to your regular shop and sort out the options regarding your battery. Since your battery is fairly new, it might take a charge well enough, you might not have to bother with swapping batteries, at least not immediately. The long term life of the battery may be somewhat compromised, but see what your preferred shop says.
Their price for the alternator is possibly a little high but not outrageously so, I think. Since it costs you $255 just for “storage” you may as well spend that on the new alternator instead of parking space.
Then again, maybe you can try this FIRST: give it a shot being super nice to the shop where your car is, on Monday morning, and see if they’d let you off with the price of one day of storage and the cost of charging your battery. It’s a long shot, but maybe worth a try. You’d need to hide your true feelings about that shop for this purpose. I think that a full charge on the battery, if it will take a charge, will get you out the door and maybe 30 + minutes driving time, hopefully enough to get you to the safe garage. That said, the new alternator and an hour on a charger will get you out of there…you’ll need to buy the alternator at one place or the other.
The price for an alternator for your car from Advance Auto Parts ranges from $144.99 to $287.99 depending on the brand, and the battery price ranges from $101.99 to $122.99, so it doesn’t seem like you’re getting that bad of a deal on either part (depending on the brand of alternator they use).
@ank: Yes, the battery was drained because the alternator was not putting charge back into it. But car batteries are not like throwaway AA batteries–if they run dead, you can recharge them. While it’s true that a battery can fail after being completely drained, especially if it happens repeatedly, and if the battery is older, your battery is only 7 months old and is likely still good.
I’d probably pay the outrageous storage fees and have the car towed to somewhere you trust, if only to deprive the first shop of any additional money and to avoid dealing with them if there are warranty issues with the new battery they want to replace or alternator. If you have AAA, use it for the tow.
I disagree, the whole problem could be the battery. I have seen this before on a relatively new battery, less than a year old. One of the terminals has separated internally. It may show a 12.6V charge in a no load condition, but it cannot pass current so for this reason, everything stops.
The alternator appears to be bad because there is no current to the field coil, therefore no magnetic field, so the alternator doesn’t produce a charging voltage. This can happen suddenly, just as described.