I bought a remanufactured alternator from Autozone for my 5.0 V8 van in December of 2011. Last week after just roughly 40k miles it failed! Even last winter it would make a whining noise but still kept charging. Obviously it was defective from the beginning. As a result a had to get ripped off from a dealer for over $400 when I broke down, but that's another story.

 

I have had bad parts too. But that can happen with any of these car places. It''s not unusual to have to go back a couple of times to get a good reman part like a starter or alternator. You must have had very good luck with them before for this to be your first failure.