2008 Alfa Spider 2.4 JTDM Owner experiences & advice reqd

[moto_traxport]

Hi all.

First post in the Italian section despite owning a Barchetta (Fiat not Ferrari!) for 10 years many moons ago - be gentle with me!

Looking at buying a practical convertible for UK commuting (big miles), weekend trips to the coast and Euro road trip (to Eeeeetaly) type holidays. After glazing over looking at Merc SLK's I tripped over an ad for a 2008 Alfa Spider 2.4 JTDM 80k miles, £6k ish and suddenly in love.

Any ownership experiences on here?

[lockhart flawse]

I have one with a roof. Not fast but a very nice car.

Take a look on the alfaowner forum. The one thing you will pick up above all is to check the roof operation. Seems they all have going up and down problems.

[KM666]

Sorry to jump on this one, but rather than start a new 2.4 jtdm thread. Drop top specific issues aside are they decent enough? I drive an E46 330d which my Dad recently took for a longer drive and is now looking for an oil burner to replace a very leggy 172 clio, (he's got a classic impreza turbo for the quick petrol side of things), and needs something both economical and swift to take the Clios spot.

Basically is it worth going for a 159 JTDM in 2.4 flavour or remapping a Q2 equipped 1.9 JTDM 147, or sticking to what I know and steering him towards a BMW. Ive not heard much about the Alfa diesels, good or bad, but its mainly down to the fact that when I googled 2.4 JTDM I wasnt confronted by pages of horror stories thats spurred my interest in them.

[moto_traxport]

KM666 said:

Sorry to jump on this one, but rather than start a new 2.4 jtdm thread. Drop top specific issues aside are they decent enough? I drive an E46 330d which my Dad recently took for a longer drive and is now looking for an oil burner to replace a very leggy 172 clio, (he's got a classic impreza turbo for the quick petrol side of things), and needs something both economical and swift to take the Clios spot.

Basically is it worth going for a 159 JTDM in 2.4 flavour or remapping a Q2 equipped 1.9 JTDM 147, or sticking to what I know and steering him towards a BMW. Ive not heard much about the Alfa diesels, good or bad, but its mainly down to the fact that when I googled 2.4 JTDM I wasnt confronted by pages of horror stories thats spurred my interest in them.

Didn't buy it in the end. I was put off by the hood aspect - of the dozen Spyders on sale, one was being sold off cheap due to u/s hood, went to see another and the hood didn't work properly one time in two and the last the chap admitted to having just changed two servo motors. Added to that the hoods looked tatty and rubbed all the silver paint off the roll bars. Just put me off.

Engine wise for a saloon or the coupé the 5 cyl motor was lovely and had bags of character and flexibilty. Spoke to a specialist (Autolusso) and they suggested they run better by removing the swirl flaps on the intake and they also suggest deleting the EGR valve as well like most. The one test drove had both of these mods already done.

I also thought the interior was falling apart more / ageing worse than an equivalent age German car.

[KM666]

Thanks for the swift reply sounds like theres not a thing wrong with the engines which is good news.

An interesting point with the interiors, I was pretty underwhelmed by the interior quality of my BMW, carpet everywhere and insulated from road noise well enough but the bolsters wear faster than they do on rivals and they are quite well known for having interior rattles and squeeks.

I imagine looking for a decent drop top must get pretty depressing by the amount of tatty roofs out there.

What did you end up getting in the end?

[moto_traxport]

KM666 said:

Thanks for the swift reply sounds like theres not a thing wrong with the engines which is good news.

An interesting point with the interiors, I was pretty underwhelmed by the interior quality of my BMW, carpet everywhere and insulated from road noise well enough but the bolsters wear faster than they do on rivals and they are quite well known for having interior rattles and squeeks.

I imagine looking for a decent drop top must get pretty depressing by the amount of tatty roofs out there.

What did you end up getting in the end?

Mercedes SLK - I'm now touting for hairdressing work.

Interior on a 60k mile Merc is like new, not sure about BMW's, and tin top thing is solid.