Visited a junkyard in Ohio and it flipped my opinion on reman parts

I stopped at a pull-apart yard outside Columbus last weekend to grab a window regulator for my F-150, and I ended up walking around for two hours. What got me was the sheer number of late-model cars with perfectly good factory alternators, starters, and even AC compressors still bolted on. For years I refused to use used electrical parts because I got burned once on a junkyard alternator back in 2003 that died after three weeks. But seeing how many of these wrecks had clean, low-miles components, I started checking the date codes and they were mostly from 2021 or 2022. I bought a reman from the parts store for $180, but the same alternator sitting in a 2022 Civic was $45 with a 30-day warranty. The yard manager told me they test everything with a load bench before they even put it on the shelf, and they keep records of what came out of what vin. Has anyone else gotten decent life out of salvage electrical parts, or did I just get lucky with my one earlier bad experience?

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