Alfa Romeo 147 2.0 Twin Spark - Unseen-ish
Discussion
Well, a reprieve of sorts has been arrived at for the Alfa.
Ive orderbthe wife a new Leaf through my company car scheme with all the driving alerts and self parking, etc.
It’s not that she can’t drive, I just think the hulkin mass of the outlander was abit too much for her.
The leaf will do for most of her journeys and family outings, for longer runs we’ll all hop in the Alfa but i’ll probably get rid of it around December when it has six months of test left and get myself a big old barge (jag xj or something).
It also means I will be able to add Nissan to the list of car manufacturers i’ve owned in my quest to fill the a-z of cars i’ve had.
Ive orderbthe wife a new Leaf through my company car scheme with all the driving alerts and self parking, etc.
It’s not that she can’t drive, I just think the hulkin mass of the outlander was abit too much for her.
The leaf will do for most of her journeys and family outings, for longer runs we’ll all hop in the Alfa but i’ll probably get rid of it around December when it has six months of test left and get myself a big old barge (jag xj or something).
It also means I will be able to add Nissan to the list of car manufacturers i’ve owned in my quest to fill the a-z of cars i’ve had.
Not a great deal to report as i’ve been busy on the house but in an idle moment I discovered a long lost feature or a certain small era of CD players...
Before you had mp3 players and track info, and before that you had CD text...and before even that, some CD players could remember the CD and allow you to ‘name’ them.
The Alfa has this feature and as I only ever listen to one CD or the radio, I wasted a few minutes of my life setting an appropriate name for the CD
Before you had mp3 players and track info, and before that you had CD text...and before even that, some CD players could remember the CD and allow you to ‘name’ them.
The Alfa has this feature and as I only ever listen to one CD or the radio, I wasted a few minutes of my life setting an appropriate name for the CD
Just caught up and was worried for a bit there when you said you were going to sell the Alfa. It must have a direct line to the motoring gods for having survived thus far!
Seeing how much it cost and how *touch wood* reliable it had been has convinced me to start saving after holiday to get me one.
Especially keen as a lot of people seem to say they are great fun. Is the power of the 2.0 twinny satisfactory enough?
Seeing how much it cost and how *touch wood* reliable it had been has convinced me to start saving after holiday to get me one.
Especially keen as a lot of people seem to say they are great fun. Is the power of the 2.0 twinny satisfactory enough?
BlameItOnGT2 said:
Just caught up and was worried for a bit there when you said you were going to sell the Alfa. It must have a direct line to the motoring gods for having survived thus far!
Seeing how much it cost and how *touch wood* reliable it had been has convinced me to start saving after holiday to get me one.
Especially keen as a lot of people seem to say they are great fun. Is the power of the 2.0 twinny satisfactory enough?
For most daily uses it is more than adequate. There will always be the odd overtake you give a miss that something with more than 150bhp would go for (The 200bhp Saab 9-3 the Alfa replaced for example) but 95% of the time is just quick and revvy enough to enjoy without ending up doing silly speeds everywhere.Seeing how much it cost and how *touch wood* reliable it had been has convinced me to start saving after holiday to get me one.
Especially keen as a lot of people seem to say they are great fun. Is the power of the 2.0 twinny satisfactory enough?
The steering rack is quick and chucking at around corners is great fun, it really digs it’s nose in and reyes squeals its way around the apex wonderfully, excessive entry speed can generate lift off oversteer amusement too if that’s your thing.
Be aware if you do motorway mileage above 70mph that only the diesel has a six speed gearbox so fuel consumption and noise levels suffer.
if you’ve saved up by xmas you can probably have this one (warts and all) for a sensible offer
As we’re waiting for the Outlander to be repaired and being a hybrid it probably needs some exotic component mined from the tears of chinese babies, the Alfa is amusingly being pressed into family wagon service...
We should have been driving to manchester airport in it last friday but the youngest rather unhelpfully came out in chickenpox spots the night before the holiday
We have insurance so at least the cost of the holiday will more or less find its way back to us. We are however planning on trying to compensate for the loss of the Spanish sun of Asturias by having a few days in Wales (no, really) so the Alfa will be tested with four up plus a dog, a suitcase and a couple of buggies...photos will be provided
This has meant I’ve prised £60 out from the talons of the good lady wife to get the aircon regassed, in case we get stuck in traffic and we boil to death.
Ignoring all that, I finally decided today to do something about not actually having a 1/2” socket set at all to do anything of note on the car (old set were in the cellar a few years back when it flooded) and spent another £60 on a Laser set - I doubt they are in anyway magnificent but they will do the job for shedding duties until i buy something worthy of a larger investment.
I toyed with changing the oil and set off to warm it up...
We should have been driving to manchester airport in it last friday but the youngest rather unhelpfully came out in chickenpox spots the night before the holiday
We have insurance so at least the cost of the holiday will more or less find its way back to us. We are however planning on trying to compensate for the loss of the Spanish sun of Asturias by having a few days in Wales (no, really) so the Alfa will be tested with four up plus a dog, a suitcase and a couple of buggies...photos will be provided
This has meant I’ve prised £60 out from the talons of the good lady wife to get the aircon regassed, in case we get stuck in traffic and we boil to death.
Ignoring all that, I finally decided today to do something about not actually having a 1/2” socket set at all to do anything of note on the car (old set were in the cellar a few years back when it flooded) and spent another £60 on a Laser set - I doubt they are in anyway magnificent but they will do the job for shedding duties until i buy something worthy of a larger investment.
I toyed with changing the oil and set off to warm it up...
I was supposed to just warm the oil up but as the kids were at the grandparents and the wife was in a Downton box set mood, I found myself out for a country blast, weirdly I chuckled to myself it must be my birthday...in yet another strange Alfa coincidence, the 147 agreed - It is 35 days since I took off the battery to change the seats, meaning the date in the Alfa was the 4th of February, which is oddly, my birthday.
There are some cracking country roads around here, some two cars wide, some less so...
I do think a 147 is perfect for these tight country lanes, almost like a rally car - even with assorted s
t tyres on, you can carry speed in to a tightening corner, the quick rack means you can really turn in and try to get an apex and the revvy nature of the engine means that you can have it in a power band and scrabble your way out of the corner, admittedly with power wastefully (but satisfyingly) going to spin up the inner wheel.
It also feels like a rally car in that it is perhaps not screwed together with an eye for quality you’d find in a lexus or vag group car.
I was initially pushing it along today to the strains of Classic fm, then turned off the radio to better hear the engine, only to realise the engine note was only just managing to compete with the road noise but in a good way.
Sure the suspension was crashing and banging at every pothole but you could feel and hear every bit of loose gravel in the corners as the tyres grabbed it up and spat it out at the underside of the car and the wheel tugged under your grip, explaining exactly what was going on.
Driving through single track roads that have only grass at each side and nobody else about only added to the fun
Yes that is a humpback bridge in the distance and no, I didn’t jump it, I daren't wreck the poor Alfa with the Outlander off the road.
Clearly all of the above sounds grossly irresponsible but the joy of the Alfa is that all of this fun can be had at relatively low speeds and as a responsible father of two (no longer the invincible teenager that raced these roads far too fast in a Mk2 Cavalier 1.8 GLi) having a car that can be driven so enjoyably at eight tenths is perfect.
The sensation of a revvy engine trying to get to the next corner is immensely good fun, in a faster car like my old 540, the next corner would be along too quickly to enjoy and the car would be too wide to be safely on the right side of the road when blasting through bends, in the saab Aero, I’d have torque steered into a ditch...
The stupidly quick rack on the Alfa also saved the life of at least one female pheasant that jumped out of the hedge at me, in a faster car I’d be sat picking feather out of a broken bumper.
The brakes held up very well, there was little bit of progressive fade, followed by one moment of “Ooh, I’ll turn left and go down that road there, oh...I appear to have sailed on past the turning, perhaps I should let the brakes rest a bit”.
The photos don’t actually show it but I stopped to inhale the smell of toasted brakes and observe the wisps of smoke gently wafting from the pads.
I declare today a good day in shed-land!
There are some cracking country roads around here, some two cars wide, some less so...
I do think a 147 is perfect for these tight country lanes, almost like a rally car - even with assorted s
t tyres on, you can carry speed in to a tightening corner, the quick rack means you can really turn in and try to get an apex and the revvy nature of the engine means that you can have it in a power band and scrabble your way out of the corner, admittedly with power wastefully (but satisfyingly) going to spin up the inner wheel.It also feels like a rally car in that it is perhaps not screwed together with an eye for quality you’d find in a lexus or vag group car.
I was initially pushing it along today to the strains of Classic fm, then turned off the radio to better hear the engine, only to realise the engine note was only just managing to compete with the road noise but in a good way.
Sure the suspension was crashing and banging at every pothole but you could feel and hear every bit of loose gravel in the corners as the tyres grabbed it up and spat it out at the underside of the car and the wheel tugged under your grip, explaining exactly what was going on.
Driving through single track roads that have only grass at each side and nobody else about only added to the fun
Yes that is a humpback bridge in the distance and no, I didn’t jump it, I daren't wreck the poor Alfa with the Outlander off the road.
Clearly all of the above sounds grossly irresponsible but the joy of the Alfa is that all of this fun can be had at relatively low speeds and as a responsible father of two (no longer the invincible teenager that raced these roads far too fast in a Mk2 Cavalier 1.8 GLi) having a car that can be driven so enjoyably at eight tenths is perfect.
The sensation of a revvy engine trying to get to the next corner is immensely good fun, in a faster car like my old 540, the next corner would be along too quickly to enjoy and the car would be too wide to be safely on the right side of the road when blasting through bends, in the saab Aero, I’d have torque steered into a ditch...
The stupidly quick rack on the Alfa also saved the life of at least one female pheasant that jumped out of the hedge at me, in a faster car I’d be sat picking feather out of a broken bumper.
The brakes held up very well, there was little bit of progressive fade, followed by one moment of “Ooh, I’ll turn left and go down that road there, oh...I appear to have sailed on past the turning, perhaps I should let the brakes rest a bit”.
The photos don’t actually show it but I stopped to inhale the smell of toasted brakes and observe the wisps of smoke gently wafting from the pads.
I declare today a good day in shed-land!
We’ve a fairly long road trip tomorrow and although I don’t mind blasting around with a slight coolant leak, taking a car full of the family and the dog and then explaining why we’re sat at the side of the road to the wife doesn’t bear thinking about
So today I finally decided to swap over the coolant tanks. The coolant tank is held on by three screws, for no apparent reason, two of them are 7mm and one is 8mm.
To save time putting it back together I laid them out on the wall mirroring their position in the car.
Annoyingly, the old tank is cleaner than the donor (but the old tank has done half the miles). I’ve heard dry rice is good at cleaning the insides of such tanks but the slightly odd interior layout of the Alfa tank meant I’d probably never get them all out again so a quick clean of the tank was done in the sink with hot water and a bit of Fairy liquid.
It still isn’t spotless inside, the crap in the sink is what came out of it but at least the water ran clear by the time I’d finished.
The top feed was simple enough to unscrew however the slow leak left me with a pretty solidly rusted jubilee clip which I optimistically sprayed a bit of WD40 on and wandered off to the donor to find another clip to replace it.
Of course the WD40 didn’t do anything as it was so far gone and I nervously resorted to a hacksaw to cut out the jubilee screw. I have no doubt in my ability to use a saw but in the same way like blokes digging the tunnel in The Great Escape were worried about the guards discovering what they were up to, I too wondered if the sound of a hacksaw being used on the only running car in the house a day before a road trip would alert the wife/death squads.
Cutting through the screw made it easy to peel off the clip and swap in the new tank. I also took care to put the clip on the right way round so whoever gets it after me won’t end up with an injury like this trying to get at the bloody things!
A top up of fluid later and she was ready to run out and check all was ok.
A quick run around my local light industrial estate cum installation lap circuit and all needles points to ok!
Back home and pressurised, there was a little too much coolant in the tank but a rummage in the cellar dconfirmed why I never chuck anything away
A hand siphon from when I fitted a new toilet a few years ago was perfect for draining out a bit of excess.
Also checked the oil (sat at halfway as it has for the last two months - touch wood I’ve got one of those twinnys that aren’t oil drinkers) and the power steering and brake fluid levels are all good too.
Just need to check the tyre pressures in the morning and off we go!
Total cost for the repair, bugger all, the donor just keeps giving
So today I finally decided to swap over the coolant tanks. The coolant tank is held on by three screws, for no apparent reason, two of them are 7mm and one is 8mm.
To save time putting it back together I laid them out on the wall mirroring their position in the car.
Annoyingly, the old tank is cleaner than the donor (but the old tank has done half the miles). I’ve heard dry rice is good at cleaning the insides of such tanks but the slightly odd interior layout of the Alfa tank meant I’d probably never get them all out again so a quick clean of the tank was done in the sink with hot water and a bit of Fairy liquid.
It still isn’t spotless inside, the crap in the sink is what came out of it but at least the water ran clear by the time I’d finished.
The top feed was simple enough to unscrew however the slow leak left me with a pretty solidly rusted jubilee clip which I optimistically sprayed a bit of WD40 on and wandered off to the donor to find another clip to replace it.
Of course the WD40 didn’t do anything as it was so far gone and I nervously resorted to a hacksaw to cut out the jubilee screw. I have no doubt in my ability to use a saw but in the same way like blokes digging the tunnel in The Great Escape were worried about the guards discovering what they were up to, I too wondered if the sound of a hacksaw being used on the only running car in the house a day before a road trip would alert the wife/death squads.
Cutting through the screw made it easy to peel off the clip and swap in the new tank. I also took care to put the clip on the right way round so whoever gets it after me won’t end up with an injury like this trying to get at the bloody things!
A top up of fluid later and she was ready to run out and check all was ok.
A quick run around my local light industrial estate cum installation lap circuit and all needles points to ok!
Back home and pressurised, there was a little too much coolant in the tank but a rummage in the cellar dconfirmed why I never chuck anything away
A hand siphon from when I fitted a new toilet a few years ago was perfect for draining out a bit of excess.
Also checked the oil (sat at halfway as it has for the last two months - touch wood I’ve got one of those twinnys that aren’t oil drinkers) and the power steering and brake fluid levels are all good too.
Just need to check the tyre pressures in the morning and off we go!
Total cost for the repair, bugger all, the donor just keeps giving
Who needs tools to fix things?
Remember my waffle about sinvisors and the driver side not working?
Thought I’d pass the time in the car park waiting for the wife to pick up fish and chips by trying to pop the assembly or bulb out to inspect it.
Turns out that after a fair bit of squeezing the light now magically works.
I’ll never ever use it but at least I know it works now
Remember my waffle about sinvisors and the driver side not working?
Thought I’d pass the time in the car park waiting for the wife to pick up fish and chips by trying to pop the assembly or bulb out to inspect it.
Turns out that after a fair bit of squeezing the light now magically works.
I’ll never ever use it but at least I know it works now
I mentioned a road trip in an earlier post but to be more specific we've actually spent an unplanned few days away in Wales in an Airbnb in search of some sunshine.
We should have been in Northern spain but the youngest managed to incubate the chickenpox the eldest has had for about two weeks before coming out in spots the night before the flight so we couldn’t go aboroad
After waiting until she wasn’t contagious (going stir crazy at home in that time) we decided to check the weather forecast and go wherever the sun was in the uk for a long weekend.
The vehicle of choice (for practicality, not fun) would be the Outlander but seeing as the missus had tried to dry hump the house with it and it is still getting repaired, the Alfa was cast, somewhat out of character, as the road trip vehicle.
The dog just about fitted in, as did the kids and the other bits, only because they’re too young to need the foot wells
Good job it was for three days not the ten days we had booked in Spain
We should have been in Northern spain but the youngest managed to incubate the chickenpox the eldest has had for about two weeks before coming out in spots the night before the flight so we couldn’t go aboroad
After waiting until she wasn’t contagious (going stir crazy at home in that time) we decided to check the weather forecast and go wherever the sun was in the uk for a long weekend.
The vehicle of choice (for practicality, not fun) would be the Outlander but seeing as the missus had tried to dry hump the house with it and it is still getting repaired, the Alfa was cast, somewhat out of character, as the road trip vehicle.
The dog just about fitted in, as did the kids and the other bits, only because they’re too young to need the foot wells
Good job it was for three days not the ten days we had booked in Spain
With temperatures forecast in the mid twenties and the prospect of a typically buggered m62 and the risk of boiling alive in standing traffic and also to make it feel more ‘holiday’ with the scenery I opted to hop a few junctions south on the M1 and cross the Pennines via the Woodhead Pass instead.
It turned out to be a great choice as there were no holdups and some great scenery, I only had one slightly awkward moment where I accidentally cut a stupendously long line of traffic in Tintwistle or somewhere by being in the wrong lane and then cutting in at the last minute when I realised, I felt less bad as the guy in the lime green lambo that followed me up the wrong lane did exactly the same too
A full car, no rush and no sixth gear meant a 70-80mph cruising speed and this dropped to the limits in Wales given their disdain for lovers of the loud pedal, though in the Alfa, it just generates noise in the cabin...
The alfa ran beautifully throughout, it is great fun on the long windy roads and hills of Snowdonia, the short rack means all corners but the tightest hairpins can be taken with limited input, making for very smooth flowing driving.
I was cruising rather than pressing on as the sound of a dog bouncing around the boot and seeing four legs/paws in the air like a comedy dead sheep on it’s back gets tiring (note - I am joking, I definitely didn’t do this, but may once have encountered such a visual image in my mirror on a tight corner that caught me napping a little).
A few times up the larger hills, dropping a cog was needed and on a couple of occasions, a bit more poke would have been nice to get past those that think the nsl on a country lane is 40-50 but if anything, it just caused me to sit back and enjoy the flow of the car and the scenery.
There are few shots of said scenery as the wife is a technophobe, but here’s one I stopped to snap in the Great Orme Park or somewhere.
The parking at the Airbnb was both a bit steep and free at the same time
I had confidence in the handbrake and gear but all the locals had chocked their car so it seemed a sensible thing to do...
Over about 600 miles it averaged 33 and a bit mpg, much better than my normal thrash based commute so where are the stereotypical Alfa based horrors?
It turned out to be a great choice as there were no holdups and some great scenery, I only had one slightly awkward moment where I accidentally cut a stupendously long line of traffic in Tintwistle or somewhere by being in the wrong lane and then cutting in at the last minute when I realised, I felt less bad as the guy in the lime green lambo that followed me up the wrong lane did exactly the same too
A full car, no rush and no sixth gear meant a 70-80mph cruising speed and this dropped to the limits in Wales given their disdain for lovers of the loud pedal, though in the Alfa, it just generates noise in the cabin...
The alfa ran beautifully throughout, it is great fun on the long windy roads and hills of Snowdonia, the short rack means all corners but the tightest hairpins can be taken with limited input, making for very smooth flowing driving.
I was cruising rather than pressing on as the sound of a dog bouncing around the boot and seeing four legs/paws in the air like a comedy dead sheep on it’s back gets tiring (note - I am joking, I definitely didn’t do this, but may once have encountered such a visual image in my mirror on a tight corner that caught me napping a little).
A few times up the larger hills, dropping a cog was needed and on a couple of occasions, a bit more poke would have been nice to get past those that think the nsl on a country lane is 40-50 but if anything, it just caused me to sit back and enjoy the flow of the car and the scenery.
There are few shots of said scenery as the wife is a technophobe, but here’s one I stopped to snap in the Great Orme Park or somewhere.
The parking at the Airbnb was both a bit steep and free at the same time
I had confidence in the handbrake and gear but all the locals had chocked their car so it seemed a sensible thing to do...
Over about 600 miles it averaged 33 and a bit mpg, much better than my normal thrash based commute so where are the stereotypical Alfa based horrors?
Edited by stewjohnst on Sunday 10th June 23:33
There were some flashes of what it is to drive an Alfa, nothing enough to cause catastrophe but enough to showcase the everything from exquisite to absurd.
The 147 passed the MOT with only three of four windscreen washers working, I had assumed this was a blocked jet but after a bird shat on the rear window and I used the rear jet to clean it, the wife laughed and exclaimed (not for the first time) “Is that it?”.
I was looking in the mirror at the gradually smearing bird st but she was laughing at the paltry single jet of water that was squirting the front windscreen?!?
Sure enough, three of the four jets clean the windscreen when I pull for the front, the fourth that doesn’t fire is inexplicably linked to the rear washer...one for the list of jobs.
I also discovered the value of a car that only beeps at important things. In the Mitsubishi, simply turning the ignition on results in a cacophony of noise like a tasered man playing a stylophone, in the Alfa - beautiful silence.
It beeped twice on the trip. Once when the range dropped to 30 miles and once when my eldest managed to reach the rear door handle and open the rear door whilst we were driving along looking for a petrol station in response to the first beep
Fortunately, the petite nature of the Alfa meant I could lean over and grab and open/close the rear passenger door from the drivers seat without the wife realising what had happened before I fixed it, locked the doors and casually mentioned our three year old and opened her door on the move...
This minor drama allowed me to find another lovely Alfa design touch.
Why make a flick switch for a child lock on the rear door when you can have a small dial that enables you to stick the end of your car key in and twist it to set the lock on or off?
Exquisitely pointless (stock footage)
I also missed gears a few more times than I’d like, finding myself hitting third and fourth when I wanted first and second at roundabouts sue the floppy nature of my gearbox, a quick dip of the clutch and a retry fixed it but I will have to get the £20 gearbox kit to tighten it all up.
I am loathe to spend money on it that should be going to a timing belt though but on the plus side, in reading the timing belt sticker to see just how much borrowed time I’m on, I’ve managed to figure out the faded name of the garage and google it so between them and Mangoletsi, I should have the best part of a FSH for it.
The 147 passed the MOT with only three of four windscreen washers working, I had assumed this was a blocked jet but after a bird shat on the rear window and I used the rear jet to clean it, the wife laughed and exclaimed (not for the first time) “Is that it?”.
I was looking in the mirror at the gradually smearing bird s
t but she was laughing at the paltry single jet of water that was squirting the front windscreen?!?Sure enough, three of the four jets clean the windscreen when I pull for the front, the fourth that doesn’t fire is inexplicably linked to the rear washer...one for the list of jobs.
I also discovered the value of a car that only beeps at important things. In the Mitsubishi, simply turning the ignition on results in a cacophony of noise like a tasered man playing a stylophone, in the Alfa - beautiful silence.
It beeped twice on the trip. Once when the range dropped to 30 miles and once when my eldest managed to reach the rear door handle and open the rear door whilst we were driving along looking for a petrol station in response to the first beep
Fortunately, the petite nature of the Alfa meant I could lean over and grab and open/close the rear passenger door from the drivers seat without the wife realising what had happened before I fixed it, locked the doors and casually mentioned our three year old and opened her door on the move...
This minor drama allowed me to find another lovely Alfa design touch.
Why make a flick switch for a child lock on the rear door when you can have a small dial that enables you to stick the end of your car key in and twist it to set the lock on or off?
Exquisitely pointless (stock footage)
I also missed gears a few more times than I’d like, finding myself hitting third and fourth when I wanted first and second at roundabouts sue the floppy nature of my gearbox, a quick dip of the clutch and a retry fixed it but I will have to get the £20 gearbox kit to tighten it all up.
I am loathe to spend money on it that should be going to a timing belt though but on the plus side, in reading the timing belt sticker to see just how much borrowed time I’m on, I’ve managed to figure out the faded name of the garage and google it so between them and Mangoletsi, I should have the best part of a FSH for it.
Edited by stewjohnst on Monday 11th June 00:12
I do think the Alfa designers seem to get an unfairly bad rep because they are so good at hiding obscurely useful features under what at first appears to be a fault...
My aircon gives out no discernibly cold air and the button was only really on for moral support so I turned it off today.
On doing so, the two aircon temperature gauges flashed on and off briefly. I though it might be telling me there was a fault but after a bit of messing, I figured it out.
It turns out that if you set the temperature of the aircon to a setting lower than the ambient temperature according to the car’s temperature sensor (27 degrees today) but don’t have the air con button on, the display flashes three times to tell you (in a ridiculously subtle way) that it can’t meet the desired temperature without you pressing the aircon button.
Curiously, if you turn it all the way down to ‘Lo’ the aircon comes on automatically but not at any other setting.
My aircon gives out no discernibly cold air and the button was only really on for moral support so I turned it off today.
On doing so, the two aircon temperature gauges flashed on and off briefly. I though it might be telling me there was a fault but after a bit of messing, I figured it out.
It turns out that if you set the temperature of the aircon to a setting lower than the ambient temperature according to the car’s temperature sensor (27 degrees today) but don’t have the air con button on, the display flashes three times to tell you (in a ridiculously subtle way) that it can’t meet the desired temperature without you pressing the aircon button.
Curiously, if you turn it all the way down to ‘Lo’ the aircon comes on automatically but not at any other setting.
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