Alfa spares avaliability

[Devil2575]

I was chatting to a work colleague yesterday who currently drives a 57 plate Alfa GT that he's owned since brand new.

The other day the door handle broke so he went to his local Afla dealer to get it replaced, as you would.
However the response he got was supprising to say the least. Alfa have stopped making spare parts for this car. So Unless you own an Alfa that is currently in production be careful because it is likely that if something breaks you might not be able to replace it. So what do we think the dealer recomended? That he should ring around the scrap yards to find a replacement. He inquired about what would happen if he crashed it and they said the same thing, Alfa no longer make any spare parts. You would have to buy pattern parts and second hand bits from a breaker.

I could understand this more if the car was 15 or even 10 years old, but it's a 2007 car!

A few years ago another work colleague who ran a 156 found the same thing with an engine mount. His car was all of 6 years old and when one of the engine mountings failed Alfa could not sell him a new one because they didn't make them any more.

I always thought that manufacturers had a legal obligation to keep making parts for so many years after production has stopped? I guess this doesn't apply in Italy.

[r11co]

The dealer is talking hooey. What is true is that the job is a bit of a bh if you are a cluless fitter (aka every dealer based mechanic) and they probably didn't want the hassle of doing it. Dealer is being a total arse and simply fobbing your friend off with a lie because they can't be bothered.

The handles are definitely available, but there's always a run on them for GTs and 147's in winter when people force the handles open while frozen and break the forward hinge.

By pure co-incidence (not!) a hinge from a FIAT 500 happens to fit quite nicely....

Edited by r11co on Tuesday 7th February 12:50

[Devil2575]

Interesting.

Great dealer service!

I'll tell him about the Fiat 500 hinge

[r11co]

Devil2575 said:

I'll tell him about the Fiat 500 hinge

Problem is that you can't buy the hinge on its own. The whole handle will need to be bought and then the hinge switched for his broken one.

The trick is to buy the cheapest handle that uses the hinge (IIRC alfa 147 passenger side without the lock barrel fitting, but that may have changed).

link 1

(Other dealers were stocking handles as early as 3 days ago!)

Edited by r11co on Tuesday 7th February 12:57

[OperationAlfa]

http://www.alfaworkshop.co.uk/parts/GT_Door_Handle...

I've fitted these at home, takes about an hour/hour and a half. Really not that bad a job.

[wrinx]

Devil2575 said:

I always thought that manufacturers had a legal obligation to keep making parts for so many years after production has stopped? I guess this doesn't apply in Italy.

Ten years iirc...some European law.

wrinx