RE: Shed Of The Week: Alfa 156 Sportwagon
Discussion
I had a facelift '04 saloon, a 2.0 JTS petrol. Bought as a daily, wanted something a bit left-field, always liked the 156 looks. Great interior, excellent leather seats. Hidden external rear door release handles were quite trick.
Engine was reasonable, decent-ish performance, but the chassis wasn't great. Quite scrabbly at the limit, with clumsy and intrusive stability control if turned on. Steering was good though, very high-geared as mentioned in the article.
As for the Alfa reliability cliches, mine was 5 years old when purchased and most of the (myriad) electrical systems to eventually fail on the car were Bosch parts rather than Magnetti Marelli etc.
Would have another as a cruiser. Always liked the GTA.
Engine was reasonable, decent-ish performance, but the chassis wasn't great. Quite scrabbly at the limit, with clumsy and intrusive stability control if turned on. Steering was good though, very high-geared as mentioned in the article.
As for the Alfa reliability cliches, mine was 5 years old when purchased and most of the (myriad) electrical systems to eventually fail on the car were Bosch parts rather than Magnetti Marelli etc.
Would have another as a cruiser. Always liked the GTA.
I had a 156 Wagon, the 2.4JTD flavour. It was very fast, not bad on fuel, but the suspension was so needy. Also the ride quality on anything bigger than 16in tyres is unbearable - so best of luck on those Supersports. The facelifted 156 is a gorgeous car indeed, and it's a great shed - even if the vendor put a blatant 'pick me for SOTW' message in there!
These look too darned good; I was close to getting one a good few years back, but a colleague almost begged me to not get one due to reliability (his brother had one, and whilst it was great when it was working, more often than not it was off the road).
Picked up an A6 Avant instead, which was close to bulletproof, had a ridiculously large boot and didn't look too bad.
But I do still pine for a 156, its like the visually perfect but hugely flawed girl that I always wanted to date.
Picked up an A6 Avant instead, which was close to bulletproof, had a ridiculously large boot and didn't look too bad.
But I do still pine for a 156, its like the visually perfect but hugely flawed girl that I always wanted to date.
cornersonrails said:
I seem to remember reviews at the time stating that the load capacity was less than the saloon's (below the window line, I assume)?
It's luggage space below the parcel shelf, which is obviously fixed on the saloon, but retractable and/or removable on the Sportwagon.In reality it was a nonsense fact from one of the rags like Autocar or AutoExpress, which seems to have stuck.
Beautiful car, but I still prefer the pre-facelift with the "Monza" slots around the grill.
Fantastic.
Stuart Gallagher of Evo tweeted a 159 wagon in a similar colour iirc at the weekend. I marvelled at the fact that it was just £6k.
Little did I know you could get something just as classy for a 6th of that price.
As said already, I'd prefer it in petrol flavour but, otherwise, what a car.
Off to test-drive an Ateca tomorrow with a view to replacing our leased Tiguan in September. I'll end up putting 2/3 of the asking price of this down as the first payment. Beginning to wonder if I should go back to Bangernomics.
Stuart Gallagher of Evo tweeted a 159 wagon in a similar colour iirc at the weekend. I marvelled at the fact that it was just £6k.
Little did I know you could get something just as classy for a 6th of that price.
As said already, I'd prefer it in petrol flavour but, otherwise, what a car.
Off to test-drive an Ateca tomorrow with a view to replacing our leased Tiguan in September. I'll end up putting 2/3 of the asking price of this down as the first payment. Beginning to wonder if I should go back to Bangernomics.
I think the facelift versions of these are gorgeous and you can see the transition to what would become the face of the 159.
A Shed of the Year contender I feel. Practical, stylish, economical-ish and not German. I hope this goes to a good home.
Good work Shed; makes up for the recent run of duds and poor prose of recent weeks.
A Shed of the Year contender I feel. Practical, stylish, economical-ish and not German. I hope this goes to a good home.
Good work Shed; makes up for the recent run of duds and poor prose of recent weeks.
This looks just perfect.
Quality of the pictures
The drive, the house.
It all oozes meticulous care for detail. I'd go there and buy that 156 without the need of a test drive, but I'd rather spend the time spared on getting to know the owner. Must be an interesting bloke, who probably could have leased something rather posh but decided to own an Alfa instead.
Quality of the pictures
The drive, the house.
It all oozes meticulous care for detail. I'd go there and buy that 156 without the need of a test drive, but I'd rather spend the time spared on getting to know the owner. Must be an interesting bloke, who probably could have leased something rather posh but decided to own an Alfa instead.
Edited by Martin 480 Turbo on Friday 5th May 12:58
rxe said:
I'll admit to owning several of these in the various variants.
GTA SW 3.2
GT 3.2
156 2.5 saloon
156 2.4 SW
We've also got a 159 20v diesel and a 155 12v v6.
Of course, the V6 is the best damn engine ever made in a car that cost less than £40K, The 2.5 sings beyond about 3000 rpm, the 3.2 is a bit more circumspect about spinning up, but all hell breaks loose at 4000.
So if I have several V6s, why did I bother with a diesel? Simple - on a long haul motorway drive, it is a better car. At 70 my old 10v diesel is doing 2000 rpm not 3200, and you can hardly hear it. With the diesel you get all the Alfa positives.... and 48 mpg if you are sensible. I've been recently handed a short term 70 each way commute. The GT 3.2 was costing £120 a week in petrol .... the diesel costs about £60.
Talk like that makes me want to chop in the 147 for a 2.5 V6 156. I dont do more then ~8K a year, so petrol costs wouldnt be an issue. My real stumbling block is how rare they are over here, and when i do find one for a friendly price, its belt is 2 years overdue...GTA SW 3.2
GT 3.2
156 2.5 saloon
156 2.4 SW
We've also got a 159 20v diesel and a 155 12v v6.
Of course, the V6 is the best damn engine ever made in a car that cost less than £40K, The 2.5 sings beyond about 3000 rpm, the 3.2 is a bit more circumspect about spinning up, but all hell breaks loose at 4000.
So if I have several V6s, why did I bother with a diesel? Simple - on a long haul motorway drive, it is a better car. At 70 my old 10v diesel is doing 2000 rpm not 3200, and you can hardly hear it. With the diesel you get all the Alfa positives.... and 48 mpg if you are sensible. I've been recently handed a short term 70 each way commute. The GT 3.2 was costing £120 a week in petrol .... the diesel costs about £60.
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