Ah, A man after my own heart. I refuse to give up my extremely reliable rusty trusty '88 Grand Caravan and '80 Volare for the same reasons, but you're misguided on a couple of points. First of all cars today are WAY cleaner. You can suck on the tail pipe and live to tell about it. Cars run better and start easier for up to 100,000 miles with no maintenance adjustments or parts replacement. My Volare can't get past 30,000 miles on a set of spark plugs. When comparing cars to cars, you're much more likely to survive a head-on crash in a '90s model puddle jumper, (other than a GM front-wheel-drive car), than in a '59 Chevy. I didn't believe it either until I saw the evidence at a high-level school I attended a few years ago. My '93 Dynasty has REAL effective anti-lock brakes and the most comfortable ride imaginable. The '59 Edsel I had rode nice too but that was because it weighed twice as much.

With older cars and trucks with carburetors, they could only be efficient at two points because there were two jets tuned for those points, idle and high speed. In between you had to run a little rich to avoid the mixture dropping into the "lean" zone. Rich causes a loss of fuel mileage. Lean causes a hesitation or stumble. One is not acceptable to a happy driver. With electronic fuel injection they use all those sensors so the computer can fine tune the mixture to perfect under a huge variety of operating conditions, not just idle and high speed. All of the systems are very effective when they work right. I agree we have way more problems than years ago, but most are easily diagnosed with the help of fault codes. My complaint has to do with the unnecessary use of technology. That means a computer to run the heater controls, power windows and locks, wipers, and things like that. Those have no benefit to the customer, they break down WAY more than on older cars, and they cost a lot more to repair. My Caravan has all those features, plus a rear wiper, rear heater, air conditioning, and automatic transmission, and they all work just fine without involving a computer.

The repairs you talked about haven't changed much. There has always been the need for special tools but today there's ten times more models and brands and each one needs their own tools in many cases. No one wants to invest in all of them so we either specialize in one area of the car, or one brand. Ford has always done things differently than other manufacturers, and the Contour and "Mistake" are definitely not any of their finer products. Their cars have been well-known for steering and suspension, and electrical problems for the last 30 years, and from what I've been hearing they aren't getting better.

I remember hearing years ago some mechanics complaining how they couldn't understand how those "newfangled alternators" worked or how to diagnose them. They're easier than the old generators. (By the way, "alternator" is a term copyrighted and first used by Chrysler). As for yours, it sounds like something is quitting after it gets warm so that's when the testing has to be done. A defective diode will cut the maximum output to exactly one third of its rated output, and that's not enough so the battery has to make up the difference. Diodes though are not intermittent. Voltage regulators and brushes can be. From your description of the problem, it sounds like the voltage regulator is slowly giving up when it gets warm. They are bolted to the back of the generator and can often be removed without removing the generator from the engine. The brushes come with it too.

As for "shade tree mechanics", I agree. I do all of my own work because I AM a mechanic, but most people don't have the tools or diagnostic equipment I do. Knowledge is another problem. Read through these forums and you'll see how total incompetent many owners are when it comes to simply describing the symptoms accurately affecting the product they trust to get them back home. They don't know what "cranks" and "turns over" means. They can't describe any further than "won't start". Gees, that can mean a dozen things, but you can't drag the information out of them. It's the lack of knowledge and training that is holding you back. If you got hired today in a dealership you'd be no more successful than you are now in your back yard. Cars aren't like people. Doctors only have to learn two models in varying sizes for their entire career. Mechanics have to learn dozens of new circuits and systems every year on dozens of new models every year, and if they see only one of that model in a year they are still expected to be an expert on it or the customer gets angry.

If you really want to get me started, let me tell you about the tricks GM, Volkswagen, and BMW have purposely designed into their products to cost owners lots of money after the sale. GM had to resort to all kinds of short-term tricks and rebates to get a new crop of unsuspecting buyers into their showrooms. There were too many former owners who said "never again". They'll be hurting in a few years again when they won't be able to find buyers.

Anyhow, before I go off in another direction, check out this page for your charging system:

http://randysrepairshop.net/ford-ac-generator-with-built-in-regulator.html