Alfa 156 - the worst car I have ever owned

Originally Posted by AndyMac

1 replacement Selespeed pump, (£400)

Andy you've been lucky ... all the other items are pretty standard parts for replacement ... I think you'll find that any car will cost you that much to run (I prefer not to add it all up because it's just far too depressing!!!)

Originally Posted by MORGANO

I loved mine, it did me proud, and amazingly never had a problem! It's only been gone 4 weeks but every time I see one like my old one on the road I smile and remember the days lol. Now got a Spider LE, so can't complain as I love that too!

It is obvious that there is no point in this discussion.

The only thing wrong with my 156 is how my wife drives it!!!

She's now managed to damage every corner in some way, in one supermarket car park or other.

Originally Posted by WorsleyBaz

The only thing wrong with my 156 is how my wife drives it!!!

She's now managed to damage every corner in some way, in one supermarket car park or other.

Hehe never trust a women to park you car.

Kept reading this topic hoping for some argument that makes sense, to me at least. Found a post where an Impreza WRX was told to have better build quality than the 156. That was funny as hell, since the Impreza, older version, was only beat to the "worst interior of the millennium" by the Mitsu Lancer and some very very cheap French cars. Build quality, that's funny, I wonder where that might be.
The new Impreza is slightly better, but not by that much. Even Impreza owners I know agree with me on this point.
As for the performance point of view, well, a Golf GTI in stock form managed to beat the newest Impreza WRX around a track by a visible margin, so there...be proud.

Mk 3 Cortina with rubber mats = worst from a nasty point of view but sold it after two weeks at a profit!

Matt white Sunbeam Stilleto (SP?) = from a looks point of view but with a 1000cc full race lump and twin webbers certainly not for performance!

I would say my 2000cc Mk 1 Cavalier but it went like stink (relatively speaking) and for £50 quid lasted two years!

My Yamaha DT400 (yeah not a car - I know) "bit" several people including myself, but bloody hell was it fast!

I guess my worst of all time was my AR 75 !!!! It actually let me down and didn't get me home when the lead to the fuel pump broke somewhere along its length, but the drivers eleccy window had stopped working and the bumpers were falling off and the fuel tank was falling apart and spilling all the petrol, and the LSD was too eager to lock up in the damp, although it was still great fun.

I dunno, take your pick! I guess I been quite lucky really.

P

Oh yeah, I had 156 sillispeed for around a year with no trouble at all!

Paulus

Originally Posted by Degu

Hehe never trust a women to park you car.

I used to have an Impreza WRX before my first 147. Awesome car. You'll notice that I've had two 147's yet never brought another one though.........

I've owned Alfas since I was 18 (and plenty other cars too) and I keep buying Alfas so they must be doing something right.....the character, the sound, the view from the drivers seat, the gorgeous lines......

Plenty of cars are better but that doesnt make them a car you enjoy to drive.

Anyway, I've got three 156's at the moment so I must be mad

Thats funny............I had a wrx sti followed closely by and evo and I would have to say that the wrx is the worst car I have ever had.......no point comparing a wrx to a diesel 156

I am not limiting myself to alfa here, I have owned 8 cars in 11 years driving and they have all been Italian, right from a FIAT Panda to the GTA and integrale.

Every time I have bought one, I have had the usual comments and warnings that I am making a mistake. And do you know what, it is all b******s! Sure I have had problems, but touch wood none of my cars have left me stranded. Depsite being told the integrale would be a whole heap of trouble I had that for 2 years and it was 100% reliable.

Problems I can think of over the years are;

1984 Panda: Fabric roof leaked, and the car was a bit rusty
1986 Panda: Had a iffy carburettor (made by webber)
1987 Uno: Nothing went wrong, though it had been abused
1987 33ti: Erm nothing went wrong
1991 75TS: Replaced electrical connector on headlight
1990 integrale: Only bad thing was I sold it, god I miss that car!
2003 Punto: The factory forgot to fit the centre seatbelt
2003 GTA: Rear airbag wiring faulty, speedo faulty (replaced under warranty)

So that isn't bad at all, and a lot better than a lot of other friends cars of supposed quality marques.

I might just go on the Subaru Owners forum and say,

the Subary Impreza 2008, bag of crap... Discuss.

Hardly constructive.

Originally Posted by OperationAlfa

I might just go on the Subaru Owners forum and say,

the Subary Impreza 2008, bag of crap... Discuss.

Hardly constructive.

Wouldn't be hard their heaps the new ones I hate to admit it but Top Gear has made me like the new Evo X for some mad reason. But it can only be in blue or black. Not that crap red they have.

The old Subarus are cool but the news ones from the Version V on are all crap.

i got to say my 156 is the best car i have owned , i love it to bits. I'd marry it if it was legal . Nothing beats the v6 snarl , it handles really well for a front wheel drive car , yeah ya get niggles with them but what car dont you get problems with. My only gripe is what fraser said and that is you have to be careful not to scrape the underside of the car as it sits so low, like i did a few weeks ago, I had the awful sound of plastic trim on concrete.

Here, so performant the new WRX is, young apprentice :
YouTube - Fifth Gear - MY08 Subaru WRX vs Golf GTI mk5 shootout

The 156 is my 20th car - I sold it this week, but there is no way on earth I would say it was the worst car I owned. None of my cars were bad in the complete sense, but a lot of them had niggles that always cost money to put right. On that score, the 156 fared pretty well compared to a 2001 Audi A6 1.9 TDI (130) Sport Avant, which was a pain in the ass for going wrong. My old 1985 Pug 205GT was no bed of roses either, it was carb fed, and those carbs were very worn, so it didn't like cold-starting (try a winter in germany to test it).

156's just need to be maintained, and are less forgiving when you ignore their needs.

Certainly not the worst car I've ever owned but, after a little more than a year, still one of the most puzzling.

The ex-wife listed its current faults and foibles the other day (made a change from her cataloguing mine). The fuel gauge is an anarchist hell bent on undermining my self confidence and my cash-flow, the radiator is obviously on the way out (unless anarchy is spreading in the gauge pod) the under tray kisses every speed bump it meets (tart) and I'm not convinced that the suspension is always awake at low speeds as it seems easily surprised by the under tray's aforementioned attempts to mate with tarmac. The leather upholstery looks great but is nowhere you want to sit on a really hot day and on top of this I put a dent in it after a few months (something I've not done to any other car for more than 20 years) which is still there thanks to the incompetent thieves in the insurance industry. I used not tolerate this sort of nonsense from an everyday car so can anybody tell me why I still smile as I walk back to it in a car park? Damned if I can.

Originally Posted by percy5095

...discuss

You are wrong

Incidentally, I forgot to mention the return spring failure on the luggage blind, the turbo lag effect as it accelerates (no turbo fitted) and the erratic operation of the passenger window switch that occasioned the former spouses original list of shortcomings. On the other hand, I am strangely reassured to have learnt on here that all of the items on her list are 'known faults'. It may only be the same sort of reassurance you get when you break down but have a friend to talk to while you wait but it works for me. TBH I was expecting more significant evidence of latin temperament having read this board before/after purchase.
Does it consume huge quantities of oil? No.
Does it fail to start? No.
Have bits fallen off it while moving? Well, nothing that's stopped it moving so that'll be a 'No' then.
Has it converted every weekend into Halfords hell? No.
Has it ever left me talking to a friend (real or imaginary) at the side of the road? No.

The 2008 Subaru Impreza is probably a fine car. It will no doubt have inherited the capacity to bail out the terminally stupid prone to ignoring road conditions or direction until even 4 wheel drive cannot save them and continues the long tradition of elevating interior blandness to new lows and exterior styling to the heights of eccentricity once occupied only by things like the Edsel...but without the charm of optimism that makes 1950's Americans forgivable.

Still, each to his own and everyone's standards differ of course. If you want to know what I think a really bad car is, imagine one that is less than six months old when the gear lever jumps right out of the floor as you take top gear in the outside lane. Naturally, that was British. (Any lifelong Sunbeam/Talbot fans on here?) Still, as it was a rental it cannot count here and the solution was brute force because tomorrow some other poor devil would be using it. As a footnote - the lack of interest when I reported the failure told me that the rental company took the same comfort from 'known faults' that I do now with the 156....many thanks for all your reassurances and...if you have been...Thanks for reading.