Buying a Giulietta

[jjcd]

I can't say I've noticed/experienced that either when pulling away gently or more 'vigorously'.

I'm not sure what would cause that though - it would be just after the warranty has run out!

[ZesPak]

Just picked this up from Germany two days ago.
Long drive, worth it!

Car looks top notch, it's a 2012 100k km QV.
Not too much options (for a QV), Xenons, seat heaters (standard?) and all the cosmetics.

Was waiting for a long time for one in red or blue with this particular set of wheels, they look amazing and it's the first thing everybody notice.

For the drive, drove it back over 600 km, was a lot more refined than I expected (pristine German roads helped though).
The wife loves it as well.

On the other side, it's just as practical as it's rivals, frugal enough (got an average of 35mpg on the way back, mostly near 100 mph).

Very happy with this addition to the garage. Hope it lasts us another 100k km!

[LeighW]

Looks very nice!

Well, I don't know about 100k km, but the passenger door handle on ours has lasted all of 22k miles. A quick search suggests it's a known issue, so check your door handles folks. Four weeks out of manufacturers warranty...

[ZesPak]

Mine still feel solid.
Just had a full check, guys at the bridge couldn't believe it did over 60k miles already. We get that response every time, 60k miles in Germany does not equal 60k miles in Belgium, the roads are a lot better there and it shows .

[LeighW]

ZesPak said:

Mine still feel solid.

That did, right up until it fell off.

Back to the Alfa dealer next Wednesday to see if the warranty will cover it. It better do!

[LeighW]

Quick update, Alfa dealer says no. It's trim, sorry, even though you bought it three months ago, as a 1 owner, 19k car with full dealer history, it's not covered by the warranty, because it's a piece of trim. Even though it's a safety issue, and your passenger cannot exit the car without someone opening the door for them. Sorry. What's more, you cannot buy the handle, you have to buy the whole door card. But thanks to the generosity of the manager, we'll do you a good deal on the labour, so it's just £333.78 please!

Chuffed I am not, especially since I had to take time out of work and do a 48 mile round trip to be told this.

Anyway, I have taken it up with Alfa customer services who have opened a case, and will "call me very soon". Watch this space. On the upside though, the dealer says that when they fix my door card, they are happy to investigate the noisy suspension, the odd lurch that the car does when pulling away, and the poorly aligned boot that hits the bumper when you close it. Happy days!

Edited by LeighW on Wednesday 9th August 15:48

[E31Shrew]

LeighW said:

Quick update, Alfa dealer says no. It's trim, sorry, even though you bought it three months ago, as a 1 owner, 19k car with full dealer history, it's not covered by the warranty, because it's a piece of trim. Even though it's a safety issue, and your passenger cannot exit the car without someone opening the door for them. Sorry. What's more, you cannot buy the handle, you have to buy the whole door card. But thanks to the generosity of the manager, we'll do you a good deal on the labour, so it's just £333.78 please!

Chuffed I am not, especially since I had to take time out of work and do a 48 mile round trip to be told this.

Anyway, I have taken it up with Alfa customer services who have opened a case, and will "call me very soon". Watch this space. On the upside though, the dealer says that when they fix my door card, they are happy to investigate the noisy suspension, the odd lurch that the car does when pulling away, and the poorly aligned boot that hits the bumper when you close it. Happy days!

Edited by LeighW on Wednesday 9th August 15:48

Had the same sort of issue on a 147 with the external handle. Got in touch with Alfa and they did cover it so good luck

[LeighW]

E31Shrew said:

Had the same sort of issue on a 147 with the external handle. Got in touch with Alfa and they did cover it so good luck

Thanks. Alfa customer services have been excellent actually, they confirmed this morning that they'll be making a 100% goodwill contribution, so it's booked in for repair FOC on 23rd.

[Kinky]

So, jjcd, Killer2005, and Jonny_, it's been 6+ months now.

Just wondering how you're all getting on

As for mine, it's not put a foot wrong at all in the 6-odd months and c. 8k miles I've put on it. Kinda dreading the next few weeks .... it's 1st MOT is due at the end of March, plus the 3-year warranty expires. My brake pads alert has popped up today, so I'll get them done at the same as the MOT/service.

Also received an email from AR HQ about a month ago or so about an updated maps/software upgrade available. Not sure it's worth the £150 or whatever the cost is

[ZesPak]

LeighW said:

Quick update, Alfa dealer says no. It's trim, sorry, even though you bought it three months ago, as a 1 owner, 19k car with full dealer history, it's not covered by the warranty, because it's a piece of trim. Even though it's a safety issue, and your passenger cannot exit the car without someone opening the door for them. Sorry. What's more, you cannot buy the handle, you have to buy the whole door card. But thanks to the generosity of the manager, we'll do you a good deal on the labour, so it's just £333.78 please!

Chuffed I am not, especially since I had to take time out of work and do a 48 mile round trip to be told this.

Anyway, I have taken it up with Alfa customer services who have opened a case, and will "call me very soon". Watch this space. On the upside though, the dealer says that when they fix my door card, they are happy to investigate the noisy suspension, the odd lurch that the car does when pulling away, and the poorly aligned boot that hits the bumper when you close it. Happy days!

Edited by LeighW on Wednesday 9th August 15:48

Does it look hard to replace? Can you get one from a salvage yard?

[LeighW]

ZesPak said:

LeighW said:

Quick update, Alfa dealer says no. It's trim, sorry, even though you bought it three months ago, as a 1 owner, 19k car with full dealer history, it's not covered by the warranty, because it's a piece of trim. Even though it's a safety issue, and your passenger cannot exit the car without someone opening the door for them. Sorry. What's more, you cannot buy the handle, you have to buy the whole door card. But thanks to the generosity of the manager, we'll do you a good deal on the labour, so it's just £333.78 please!

Chuffed I am not, especially since I had to take time out of work and do a 48 mile round trip to be told this.

Anyway, I have taken it up with Alfa customer services who have opened a case, and will "call me very soon". Watch this space. On the upside though, the dealer says that when they fix my door card, they are happy to investigate the noisy suspension, the odd lurch that the car does when pulling away, and the poorly aligned boot that hits the bumper when you close it. Happy days!

Edited by LeighW on Wednesday 9th August 15:48

Does it look hard to replace? Can you get one from a salvage yard?

It was repaired FOC by Alfa. It doesn't look hard to replace, no, but you can't buy the part on its own. The car has been fine since (touch wood!), and I really like it.

[Killer2005]

Kinky said:

So, jjcd, Killer2005, and Jonny_, it's been 6+ months now.

Just wondering how you're all getting on

As for mine, it's not put a foot wrong at all in the 6-odd months and c. 8k miles I've put on it. Kinda dreading the next few weeks .... it's 1st MOT is due at the end of March, plus the 3-year warranty expires. My brake pads alert has popped up today, so I'll get them done at the same as the MOT/service.

Also received an email from AR HQ about a month ago or so about an updated maps/software upgrade available. Not sure it's worth the £150 or whatever the cost is

Still love mine. For day to day I just keep it on Natural mode but when I have a play in Dynamic it really becomes a really good car and feels planted at speed.

Had a slight issue with the external temperature sensor but that's getting fixed under warranty. It had it'd first MOT a couple of weeks ago and absolutely nothing needed however I'm going to need some tyres later this year but everything else is fine.

[Kinky]

[Jonny_]

Kinky said:

So, jjcd, Killer2005, and Jonny_, it's been 6+ months now.

Just wondering how you're all getting on

As for mine, it's not put a foot wrong at all in the 6-odd months and c. 8k miles I've put on it. Kinda dreading the next few weeks .... it's 1st MOT is due at the end of March, plus the 3-year warranty expires. My brake pads alert has popped up today, so I'll get them done at the same as the MOT/service.

Also received an email from AR HQ about a month ago or so about an updated maps/software upgrade available. Not sure it's worth the £150 or whatever the cost is

Our car's still going strong, in fact it's just today gone past the gigantic psychological hurdle of 100,000 miles. Surely catastrophic failure is imminent!

A couple of weekends ago I replaced the front suspension wishbones, which has cured the "clunk" from the front end that had developed when going over bumps. Not a particularly pleasant job due to (a) the sheer amount of stuff that has to come off just to gain access to the front retaining bolt (arch liner, undertray, chassis strengthening bar thingies, and even the airbox on the offside!) and (b) the usual bdry involved in splitting balljoints - compounded on the Giulietta by the use of an aluminium hub carrier clamping around a steel balljoint pin. New ones have been installed only after thoroughly cleaning out the clamping surfaces with emery cloth, and a generous smear of copper grease applied!

I also replaced the drop links while I was at it, in theory a very easy job but in practice I was beset by one seized nut, which required the use of heat and moderate violence (and considerable amounts of foul language) to shift it! Then, having trashed the nut to remove it, I was left with one less nut than required, as the new drop links don't come with new nuts (they really should as they're a Nylok type), my nut and bolt stash didn't run as far as any fine-threaded stuff and I couldn't source one locally on a Sunday afternoon. Fortunately the day was saved by the chap next door having a few of the requisite M10 fine-thread Nylok nuts in his bucket of old Alfa parts! Have since picked up some new ones as reusing old Nyloks isn't a great idea.

While it was in the air with the undertray off, I gave the engine its 99000-mile service, which consisted mainly of an oil and filter change. At least that was nice and easy and nothing was seized.

Tell you what, they're not giving the oil away, are they? That Selenia stuff was about £45! The oil, filter, wishbones and drop links (all genuine Alfa parts) came to about £320 all in.

Also was reading with interest LeighW's post from earlier about the door handle. The driver's handle on ours broke in November; as ours is a 7 year old car I didn't even bother troubling the dealer. I instead found an Italian ebay seller offering the door handle assembly for £80 delivered, although I think it's only fair that I should warn anyone thinking of this approach: fitting is not a job for the faint-hearted! It involves a certain amount of cutting and drilling inside your door card to get the old handle assembly out, and then a fairly tricky combination of wiggling and levering to get the new one in place. Then, unless you're a dab hand at plastic welding, the areas that you've cut and drilled need Aralditing.

Fortunately, the end result is a door handle that looks and works precisely as intended, and all the cutting and gluing is confined to the hidden side of the door card so there's no outward sign whatsoever that it's been replaced. I was pleased to see that the new part has a slightly thicker moulding where the door release cable connects to the lever, which is the common point of failure with these handles.

[LeighW]

Jonny_ said:

Also was reading with interest LeighW's post from earlier about the door handle. The driver's handle on ours broke in November; as ours is a 7 year old car I didn't even bother troubling the dealer. I instead found an Italian ebay seller offering the door handle assembly for £80 delivered, although I think it's only fair that I should warn anyone thinking of this approach: fitting is not a job for the faint-hearted! It involves a certain amount of cutting and drilling inside your door card to get the old handle assembly out, and then a fairly tricky combination of wiggling and levering to get the new one in place. Then, unless you're a dab hand at plastic welding, the areas that you've cut and drilled need Aralditing.

Fortunately, the end result is a door handle that looks and works precisely as intended, and all the cutting and gluing is confined to the hidden side of the door card so there's no outward sign whatsoever that it's been replaced. I was pleased to see that the new part has a slightly thicker moulding where the door release cable connects to the lever, which is the common point of failure with these handles.

Sounds like a pain, I'm glad Alfa coughed up for ours!

Anyhow, ours is due a service at the end of February. It was new on 1st July 14 (I got the main dealer to service it when we bought it eleven months ago), and it has done 26k miles. I was wondering if a cambelt change was due, so dug out the handbook:



So, on the chart it says it is due at 8 years/120000km/72000m, but in the text below it says that in non dusty areas it is due at 6 years regardless of mileage (so contradicts the 8 years on the chart?), and then says that in demanding use or if it is dusty or cold, 60000km or 4 years. So, seeing as we use it for our daily commute of 5 miles/15 minutes, plus other general use, in the not very dusty, but sometimes slightly cool East Midlands, when should I get the bloody belt changed?!

[ZesPak]

LeighW said:

Sounds like a pain, I'm glad Alfa coughed up for ours!

Anyhow, ours is due a service at the end of February. It was new on 1st July 14 (I got the main dealer to service it when we bought it eleven months ago), and it has done 26k miles. I was wondering if a cambelt change was due, so dug out the handbook:



So, on the chart it says it is due at 8 years/120000km/72000m, but in the text below it says that in non dusty areas it is due at 6 years regardless of mileage (so contradicts the 8 years on the chart?), and then says that in demanding use or if it is dusty or cold, 60000km or 4 years. So, seeing as we use it for our daily commute of 5 miles/15 minutes, plus other general use, in the not very dusty, but sometimes slightly cool East Midlands, when should I get the bloody belt changed?!

I always had a belt change on every car I can remember between the 100k-120k km mark, so over 60k miles.

[jjcd]

I had the belt changed on mine when I bought it as it was 6 years old though only on ~43,000 miles.

I've almost 8,000 miles since buying the car and it hasn't put a foot wrong. I enjoy driving the car and its been 100% reliable (touch wood!). I'm also averaging about 35MPG though I do have it in D mode quite often. For the first time I tried to All Weather mode today - I don't know if it really does much but it worked fine in the snow!

I've just booked it in for a service in March at Go Italia in Maidstone as they've been recommended to me.

[ZesPak]

jjcd said:

For the first time I tried to All Weather mode today - I don't know if it really does much but it worked fine in the snow!

On the QV (240hp) it drastically alters the response of the loud pedal.
My wife has hers in A all the time, as it makes the car more driveable for her. It's just more "calm" instead of "angry".
I like the throttle response of D, but the steering just becomes artificially heavy. I have it in N most of the time.

[LeighW]

ZesPak said:

I like the throttle response of D, but the steering just becomes artificially heavy. I have it in N most of the time.

That's what I do, I don't know why they made the steering so heavy for the D mode, it's pretty much spot on in N.

I've asked Research Alfa Nuneaton (the dealer we bought it from) for a price for the service, but I'm still waiting for a response... I may try Variava Nottingham instead. Anyone have any other recommendations within a reasonable distance of Ashby de la Zouch?

[Vitorio]

LeighW said:

So, on the chart it says it is due at 8 years/120000km/72000m, but in the text below it says that in non dusty areas it is due at 6 years regardless of mileage (so contradicts the 8 years on the chart?), and then says that in demanding use or if it is dusty or cold, 60000km or 4 years. So, seeing as we use it for our daily commute of 5 miles/15 minutes, plus other general use, in the not very dusty, but sometimes slightly cool East Midlands, when should I get the bloody belt changed?!

Given alfa's history with speccing overly optimistic belt change periods, id go for the shortest option (granted, those were completely different engines)