RE: The Brave Pill | Alfa Romeo 156 GTA

[woody33]

Yes, the Busso's never really used oil unless there was an issue. The Twinny's were the one's that used it like it was going out of fashion.
The Busso timing belt was also a bit stronger than the twinny but 48k or 4 years is as far as you want to push it.
The extra torque of the 3.2 meant diff failure was very common usually taking the gear box housing with it, so a lot will have the lsd which does improve handling.
A good performance upgrade is removal of the exhaust manifold pre-cats which was quick fix by Alfa to meet new Euro regs at the time.

[westernlancia]

You were right. I have owned an Audi A6 Quattro and a Lancia Kappa V6 with the 3.0 litre Busso engine, and the Audi was the worst car I have ever owned - stodgy to drive, slow, terrible ride, uneconomical, unreliable (2 Tiptronic gearboxes in 2 years), and basically just a horrible car. I ditched the Audi as soon as I could, but a friend is still running the Kappa, and it has now done 220,000 reliable, enjoyable and rust-free miles.

[Pud237]

Mine's the other blue GTA for sale currently, link: https://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/... I've put the reg in the description now, for anyone wanting to check its MOT history online. Its a lovely car, shame it is a cat D really but at least it makes it cheap for the next owner. I've also got a 156 2.4 JTD which is my daily and a 3 litre converted 1999 156 V6 - those two combined aren't worth half what the GTA is worth, so they'll be staying and the GTA can go. Sadly the money is needed for concrete and insulation and heating pipes and loads of other boring things that come with renovating an old house.

[bloomen]

This car looks like an utter dog and 4000 miles in six and a half years strikes me as a teensy bit strange. I'd rather save for another couple of years and buy a good one.

[Weekendrebuild]

I struggle with this when people disbelieve mileage 6 of my cars did 1500 miles between them last year all depends on how many cars you own really .

[HardtopManual]

This has been advertised in Auto Trader at 8 grand for absolutely yonks. The fact that it's still there, and now on PH with £1500 off, suggests that closer inspection reveals something seriously wrong with it.

[mcpoot]

PokiGTA said:

The engine is everything. No modern tricks to the Busso. No variable valve timing or direct injection or twin sparks or any trick intakes. Just 3.2ltrs of exceptional engineering that dated back nearly 30 years. No V6 of the same era came close to getting similar output/litre without the trickery mentioned above.

Well apart from the Audi 3.2 VR6 that is.

[Kinky]

Interesting read

I see this thread is also linked via AO too

I've seen one at a well respected Indie a few days ago and I've been mulling over it ever since. So much so I went back to see it again this afternoon and spent a bit of time with it

Nice to see that HJ classes it as a future classic : https://classics.honestjohn.co.uk/top-10s/top-10-f...

[paulg390]

HardtopManual said:

This has been advertised in Auto Trader at 8 grand for absolutely yonks. The fact that it's still there, and now on PH with £1500 off, suggests that closer inspection reveals something seriously wrong with it.

Or it could be there just aren’t many buyers out there ? I had mine, a 62k near mint one, for sale earlier this year at £9995 not one call in 2 months, lowered it to 8.5k had two calls in just over a month.. both bought it (first pulled out due to loss of garage). At the moment the “press” seem to be still talking up values on a lot of classics which is reflected in “asking” prices but the actual buying market seems very different in my experience of selling a couple of my collection recently. Maybe dealers are doing better than private sales too....

[PokiGTA]

mcpoot said:

Well apart from the Audi 3.2 VR6 that is.

Indeed the VR6 was almost as good and the VR layout made it sound pretty sexy. It had variable valve timing though and the later models were direct injection too

[Mr Tidy]

mcpoot said:

PokiGTA said:

The engine is everything. No modern tricks to the Busso. No variable valve timing or direct injection or twin sparks or any trick intakes. Just 3.2ltrs of exceptional engineering that dated back nearly 30 years. No V6 of the same era came close to getting similar output/litre without the trickery mentioned above.

Well apart from the Audi 3.2 VR6 that is.

Why does it need to be a V6 though?

My 55 plate E90 330i has a straight 6 with 258 bhp, and the bonus of RWD - works for me!

[alfabeat]

Amazing cars. Had my Sportwagon GTA for 10 years now. Had never driven an Alfa before buying this one. Just came across it at a garage and after a short test drive, bought it.

Even after 100k miles and 10 years it still makes every journey an occasion.

Some parts are hard to get hold of now, but they are simple cars and well understood by the specialists.

I really can't see me selling mine ever. Off to Le Mans in a couple of weeks. Can't wait.

[Kinky]

alfabeat said:

Had my Sportwagon GTA for 10 years now

Other than the usual scheduled servicing, car tax, insurance, MOT and of course petrol, how has the running costs been over the 10 years?

[alfabeat]

Very difficult to say, as I've never added them up and I've spent a lot on upgrades.

It has been extremely reliable though, never, ever left me stranded.

The biggest thing to worry about is rust. Floor pans, cills and front wings. Front wings are very difficult to get hold of now.

Bumpers are hard to find.

ECU's do fail (possibly due to location in engine bay, just above the pre cats) and a replacement ECU, if you can find one, is over a grand. They are not easy to fix.

Everything else is fairly straightforward.

Super cars to drive though. Engine is very tough (keep on top of cambelt changes) and they look and sound superb. Plus they are rare, so you don't see many around these days.

Really hard to explain the love for them. But those who have one and sell, often come back looking for another. They are addictive.

[alfabeat]

Some more gratuitous pics of GTA's

[alfabeat]

[rxe]

If you avoid the upgrades, and don’t have a rotten one, they can be perfectly reasonable to run.

‘Consumable’ suspension bits are shared across the 156, 147 and GT. You can replace all the wearing parts, front and back with TRW (OE supplier) for about £350 in bits.

Engine consumables (sensors, coil packs, plugs, filters, belts, tensioners and ancillaries are common to all V6s. Not expensive.

Front brakes (330 mm) are £170 for OE Brembo discs and pads - eBay. Back brakes cost a few quid, and are common across the range.

They’re a perfectly reasonable DIY proposition, MultiECUScan does dealer level diagnostics for eur 50.

So what goes wrong?

Rot - floorpans mainly.
Head gaskets tend to be fragile at about 100k, symptom is a poor idle - but this is also the symptom of a poor cambelt job.
Cambelts are often botched, leading to poor running and premature failure. Doing it properly isn’t cheap, and a lot of people scrimp here.
Wings (mostly unavailable) rot where they stretched them to clear the larger track.
Loads of bits unavailable (silly stuff like OSF wheel arch liners).
ARB bushes can fail - £10 part, £300 to get to it.

IMO a GT 3.2 is a much more sensible way of getting behind a 3.2 busso. 100% of the engine, 98% of the handling, 80% of the interior, 50% of the price.

[S100HP]

Wagons are so much nicer than the saloon. I reckon I might have still had mine if it had been a wagon.

[OnTheEdge]

I hope you checked the floor pans for rust, some 156's suffer very badly in this area.

[MDMA .]

S100HP said:

Wagons are so much nicer than the saloon. I reckon I might have still had mine if it had been a wagon.

Currently looking at them in Japan

Just need to work out the import costs.