After an absolute stinker of a job, I've fallen at the final hurdle (before the inevitable hell of reassembly...).

Is this connector on the rear of the alternator broken? I can't remove it for the life of me, and after five hours, I'm at my wit's end.

Believe me; you haven’t fallen at the first hurdle. To get to this point you’ve done a good job, as you must’ve removed the fan and probably removed the various bolts holding the alternator in place.
It is a pig of a job, of that there is no doubt. I spent a long time on mine during the week after Christmas, when the temperature was not much above freezing, so you should be glad that your fingers aren’t numb from the cold while you do this.
From memory it needs some squeezing to release the connector, but as I did it without being able to see it, I can’t offer much more info.
Keep going; it will be worth it. Once you disconnect it, the next hurdle will involve the plastic intake below, which needs moving slightly to help you remove the alternator once you rotate it. Someone recently advised me to slacken off a couple of 8mm bolts to give more clearance but I can’t vouch for that, although I wish I’d known about the at the time….
Hopefully you are following the guide in the Wiki, which I couldn’t have done without.
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Thank you! I've actually already managed to get the body of the alternator free (somehow), so at least I don't have that particular thing to dread, although getting the new one in will no doubt be equally horrid.

My concern is that there doesn't seem to be anything to squeeze or press on the connector - where the two orange rubber nibs are on each side, it looks like there may be some plastic missing, but I can't be sure.

Does anybody know where the wire leads to? It would be handy to get some more slack, so I'm not in a stress position while doing yoga to actually reach the bloody thing.

I'm also rather wary about breaking the wires - what are the implications if that happens? Would it need an auto electrician to come out to fix it?

When I changed mine (twice), I had this issue, it takes strong fingers and a good amount of perseverance to get this connector off.
There is a write up on here on this, to which I contributed to, so have a search for it.

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Thanks for the replies everyone - much appreciated.

I did some digging last night and found a place that sells replacement connectors, so I could actually visualise what I needed to do. Two minutes' work this morning, and the old alternator is off!

Putting the new one in will give me something to look forward to in the evenings this week, I'm sure...

I remember struggling with this ridiculous clip, took me bloody ages to get it off, I had to go away and have a cup of tea and come back to it again and still struggle with it, but eventually it came free, it’s simply perseverance I’m afraid, and sore fingers 😂 2009 (2010 MY) 5.0 Supercharged Autobiography
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