Quirkiest quirk ever....

After almost six months of ownership my 166 has behaved itself and never ever let me down.
However last week on a motorway, the anti skid light illuminated and I pulled over as quickly as possible (when I got out of the roadworks).
I noticed the brakes were very hot and a slight wobble on the steering before the light came on.
I left the car to stand for five minutes and switched on again and the light went out. All was well that day and I drove for another 150 miles without a problem.
When I got home I had my local Alfa specialist check the car. He checked the diagnostics and could find no problem with the brakes or anti skid gizmo. He did tell me the rear brakes had become very warm and as a precaution changed the brake fluid and the rear pads.
All was well until Friday when the same thing happened again. This time I stopped as soon as the light came on and noted as soon as this happened the brake lights lit up also.
This only happens on motorways and a very slight steering wobble occurs before the light illuminates. The system always resets itself and behaves normally as soon as the engine is turned off and is started again.
The car is a very low mileage full Alfa history car and is faultless in every way.
Waiting to speak to my Alfa guy next week but in the meantime anyone got any idea what is going on???

I presume it is the vdc light that came on?
I would think the only reason the brakes would be hot' if they had not
been used heavily would be the handbrake is partially seized or indeed the rear calipers were partially seized,but doesn't seem likely as you say the pads were changed.
Handbrake cable problems are quite common to this model,bar this I
cannot think of anything else.

It's the light on the rev counter that comes on along with the one next to the fuel release switch in front of hand brake.
I don't think its a brake binding issue, not initially anyway. It seems to be an electrical issue that then applies the brakes.
Strange I know but the car drives perfectly until it does forty or fifty miles on a motorway.
Does the anti skid device work by applying brakes??

sounds like your abs is playing up?

Yes thats the vdc light,it certainly sounds as though there are
electrical issues.

I had the same issue when I was coming home through Germany, after filling up with petrol the light came up. 300 kms later :-) I stopped for petrol again, when restarted the engine, the light was gone, and never came back since.
However because it has happened to you twice, I'd check if the brake disc is touching the pads - it might cause trouble only on long journeys at (high) speed when it has time to heat up. I had this on my 1st car (Peugeot 405) after the dealer replaced the pads, and since it's was '91 car no lights came up, just lost all the brakes suddenly after a 500 km journey with 4 people in the car (the brake fluid boiled up). I went back the dealer the next day, and believe me they learnt that Hungarian is the second most versatile language if it comes to cursing...

Thanks for the advice lads.
Klapanciusz, your experiences with the Alfa and the Pug make me think I have exactly the same problem as you had with the 405.
The thing I do not understand is why has the problem suddenly appeared and why do the brake lights come on?
By the way car passed its mot today and the tester evan commented on what a stunning car I have.

Did you ever find the reason for this?

I also have a slight issue when going through medium-fast lefthanders(and ONLY lefthanders). The VDC light will come on as the car tries to "regain control" by applying the brakes, but only very slightly as there is no skidding going on. Only thing I can think of is the left rear camber which is too much at the moment, haven't had time to adjust yet. Also there is nothing of this when taking the lefties at full tilt, only medium speed.

Any ideas?

I´ve had the ABS light come on twice, for no obvious reason. I think it did have something to do with the extreme rain, on both occasions. Had been driving quite long, at least 400 km that day, and suddenly the ABS light came on, and the cruise control disengaged and would not come on again. The light turned on as soon as I started her the next day, and stayed for at least 100 km´s. After stopping for some burgers, the light remained off. After getting back home I had a quick look at the ABS sensor wires, but couldn´t find any cracks or leaks or similar. I thought maybe water had entered somewhere causing a short.

Recently I have also noticed my hand brake cable has seized (hardly ever use it), or maybe the rear brake calipers. So she´s getting new discs, pads, cables and a good caliper cleaning (removing the pistons and cleaning) next week. Hope it will sort things.

I´ve had the same problem and everything was OK after doing the wheels alignment (don´t know if this is the english word to say that). My steering wheel was not perfectly straight so its sensor was sending a wrong information and the VDC didn´t know what to do. I was told that the VDC system breaks off when the different sensors information is not congruent.

Now It works, and they took only 1 hour to repair it.

Good luck.

Ah, of course! This could be the reason for the VDC to disengage. If the wheels are not exactly the same size, maybe one side worn or similar, the frequency from different sensors will not be the same and then the VDC might decide somethings wrong.

Aah! Now where getting somewhere!

I've overhauled the chassis with bilsteins, eibach, powerflex etc. and done wheel alignments, but the steering wheel isn't perfectly straight(off to the left) which could send wrong signals to the system that I'm beginning to slide. Also, when I bought the car the dealer promised new rear tires, of which only one had arrived. When other arrived it was same brand but different model (crappy malaysian tires). I know that different wheel sizes would cause my former BMW to go haywire and send signals to the automatic not to shift gear as it thought it was midcorner when wheel speeds didn't correspond. But I will definitely start by setting the steering wheel straight, wheels will sort themselves as I'm fitting bigger rims soon with good quality tires.

Thanks for all the input!

make sure you have matching patterns (at least on the same axle) and you should always put the new(er) tyres on the back.