0.1uf Suzuki 400WV Capacitors

[oldvinyldude]

I had to replace all the 'lytic caps in auto amp (04 TL). It's a 6 channel amp, and I was down to one! I found a thread in an Acura forum where it was commonplace to see the failure.

In it was a link to an article explaining why these caps failed. Seems there was an engineer on a team that worked on and had successfully created a water based electrolyte, which gave them a cost advantage. Apparently, it was a big challenge to create a water based formulation. Then that engineer left and went to work with the competitor, and took the recipe with him. (stole a trade secret).

However, he did not have the fully vetted one-he was missing something important. I think Alpine made the amps, and bought these flawed caps and they have been a problem for anyone who bought from the competitor.

In effect, these caps were defective right out of the box.

 

[gadget73]

I've heard that referred to as "capacitor plague". Its an era of caps with that defective formula in the early 2000's. The stuff I'm messing with pre-dates that, its just old and suffering from heat exhaustion.

 

[Richard P]

Revisting the Suzuki cap issue since i just finished putting an A-4010SL back together and I have an A-4010S on the shelf waiting it's turn. I pulled all 13 Suzuki 0.1uF caps along with the electrolytics in the transport section during the restoration. All of the electrolytics tested good for capacitance as did the Suzukis and ESR values were very low. I recently restored a Heathkit C-3 'condenser' tester so I thought i'd check the Suzukis on that. They all failed leakage test well below their rated 400V and most didn't make it past 150V. I'd recommend changing them since they are cheap and relatively easy to replace while you are in there.