159, Brera & new Spider Experiences

Dave, with a Dealer like that I'd be glad of a few niggles!

Originally Posted by DavetheChemist

so they gave a replacement car for the down time. Brand spanking new jet black Masterati Quattroporte! For 2 whole days! So although the dealer couldn't fix the problem the smile on my face still hasn't worn off.

Now that's what I call a 'loaner'

My Brera would be in for repairs all the time if that was the case here in the UK

Originally Posted by DavetheChemist

Took them a couple of days to play with the windscreen seals - so they gave a replacement car for the down time. Brand spanking new jet black Masterati Quattroporte! For 2 whole days!

Show me a dealer that gives you a Maserati as a courtesy car and I would use them every time! I wouldn't mind how long it takes to fix all the problems.

Maserati QP eh?

I thought I was doing well getting a ****roen C2 without a radio...

Quattroporte - ARUK UK will have to import some of those NZ guys.

Jesus! That is awesome

As Hertz have been hiring Breras and 159s out over the
last few months; does anyone know someone who works
for them? Maybe see if they had more/less/same problems
than other makes?

Originally Posted by nomad

My Brera would be in for repairs all the time if that was the case here in the UK

Don't speak too soon, it might be

My views on my car as per a post elsewhere on the forums:

Hello to all,

I picked up my new Brera a couple of weeks ago and thought I'd post a few thoughts and views now that I've had a good chance to use it and get to know it. It's my first Alfa and I've always wanted to run one ever since my dad had a 164 when I was in sixth form and I was occassionally allowed use of it at weekends but have never been brave enough to take the plunge. I've got what I am told was the last Brera 3.2 available on the Alfa funded PCH deal of £360 per month which includes all maintenance, tyres and road tax so I figure that gives me a fair degree of security should anything go wrong- here's hoping I don't need to put that theory to the test though.

Spec of the car is as follows:

Brera 3.2 SV - Montecarlo Blue - Grey/Black leather - Horseshoe alloys

As it was a stock car I had no choice over colour, options etc - would have loved the Blue & Me but have made do by fitting the Blaupunkt Bluetooth/USB interface detailed elsewhere on these forums which seems to be a pretty good piece of kit for £99. Have also put in a Garmin Nuvi 360T on a Brodit pro clip which fits in very neatly indeed.

Some initial observations and thoughts on the car:

It looks terrific - beautifully styled and the colour looks great in bright sunlight. It attracts loads of positive glances and comments - call me shallow but I quite like that !

It has a fine engine - lots of torque means good motorway acceleration and flexibility plus it makes a terrific noise when in the VVT range in particular although it's not quite the old V6 noise I remember. It's also loosening up nicely as time progresses. Gearbox seems fine to me despite what others have said, quick and positive in action and have suffered no drivetrain shunt so far. Again as you would expect this too is loosening up over time.

It's well put together - yes it's heavy but that certainly lends an air of solidity. The guy who fitted the Blaupunkt kit was quite taken aback at the quality of the way the car was put together in comparison to previous generation Alfas. Only downside is that I now have the rocking seat syndrome which has been widely reported on here - this is annoying and I'll be getting it fixed ASAP.

The weight is apparent but in my mind not a great deal worse than a previously run Nissan 350Z. I have no doubt the weight blunts outright perfromance but it feels pretty quick to me and compared to our other car it's a rocketship so I'm fairly happy with the overall pace of the car.

It has incredible levels of grip - this I like very much ! Living near the roundabout capital of the UK ( Milton Keynes) this grip is both fun and much appreciated at times. In the Nissan damp days could either be amusing or a little too heart in mouth, the Brera is absolutely rock solid and cornering speeds are impressive.

Fuel consumption - Have read a few horror stories on here and TBH I can see how one could achieve these awful numbers. On a motorway run to Sheffield I managed an average of 25 more heavy footed driving sees me down at about 15 and overall I reckon I'm at 21ish. Could be better but I did enter into buying the car knowing it was never going to beat a Prius in this respect !

Dealer experience - From my dealings with the first two dealers I visited it's obvious Alfa have some way to go to sort out the overall customer experience. My view was that product knowledge and overall ambience was a long way below par for a supposed premium car manufacturer . That said my eventual supplying dealer was absolutelyfirst class and a real credit to the trade. On the day of collection I got the full red cover unveiling and very nice bouquet for Mrs RSK - hello to Palmers of St Albans and a particular thanks to Will the sales controller. I can heartily endores this dealership from a sales perspective, when I go back in on Thursday for the seat issue hopefully I'll be able to say the same about the servicing team.

Other bits and pieces - remarkably practical boot but useless back seats and not a great amount of oddment space in the cabin, but maybe that'll just encourage me to be less cluttered.

Stereo headunit is OK but radio reception lousy with the wipers on which is a bit annoying - speakers could be better and I'll possibly look at an upgrade some time in the future. I considered taking it all out and putting in a double din unit with navi etc etc but am so far v happy with the Garmin and the Blaupunkt USB device.

I've had no problems with seat comfort, visibility or headroom unlike some have reported. For the record I'm 6ft2" and of rugby player build.

Having said I'm OK with the performance I'd like perhaps a little more urgency to match the flexibility and will more than likely opt for the Autodelta remap in the future.

So there you have it, one satisfied customer to date. Apologies for the lengthy tome but after having read so much Brera (and for that matter 159) bashing posts on here I thought I'd take the time to put across a positive view or two.

Great forums by the way - have been a huge help to me in my buying decision so thanks to all concerned.

RSK

Originally Posted by rsk21

So there you have it, one satisfied customer to date. Apologies for the lengthy tome but after having read so much Brera (and for that matter 159) bashing posts on here I thought I'd take the time to put across a positive view or two.

Great forums by the way - have been a huge help to me in my buying decision so thanks to all concerned.

RSK

Hey, don't apologise. Nice post!!!

I rejected my car (2.4 JTD) after 11 months and 13k miles and I must say Alfa Romeo UK along with Mangoletsi have worked very hard to put things right. The reason for the rejection, numerous niggly faults and two great big ones. The gear linkage broke and the inlet manifold failed, major engineering faults shouldn't happen in £33k car. I have accepted a replacement.
I love the car and it is a love affair I am happy to continue, so long as it doesn' keep breaking down.

Can anyone actually confirm how good/bad the 3.2 mpg is?

Who did you deal with at ARUK? I'm having no end of problems with them and getting a replacement 159....

I've had my Brera 3 months/6,000 km now. And I love it to bits. It drives so beautifully it makes me smile every time I drive it, even more so than my first car (an old MG 20 years ago, when my standards were lower) did! And it is safe, reliable, semi-practical, yet fast and deeply glamorous. No issues apart from a buzz in the headlining, which was fixed, and a slight attack of the rocking seat, which sounds a lot better than a lot of people's experiences and I can live with. Had a close look at a new Audi TT yesterday (on display at the airport for heaven's sake) and was not in the least tempted by any aspect of it. Quite possibly Alfas are the last cars in the world which are an affordable passion.

159 2.2 SW here. (only 3000km on it)

So far here's my list :
1. Selespeed problem (immediately upon collection of the car)!!!
2. CD player stuck - dealer claims its a dirty CD
3. Rear licence plate light blown
4. Aircon is feels inconsistent. For any given setting, i find the temperature very variable
5. Aircon filter problem? - Smells from outside the car permeate in.
6. Side mirror doesn't reset after reversing - this happens about 20% of the time.
7 Aircon buttons are don't respond? Either i'm not pressing the right buttons the right way, or they don't respond. I'll need to press the button on ave 2-3 times to increase or decrease the fan speed.

I'd say minor niggles so far. I absolutely love the car, but i can't believe the number of faults on this baby. Hope everything else holds together

A few minor niggles:
Warning light came on in the first 50 miles, the fault repaired itself.
A few rattles comming from the dashboard when driving.
The plastic circular centre of the steering wheel is now coming out towards me, i can see the horn unit/airbag unit underneath.
I try pushing back in ut all i do is sound trhe horn to everyones annoyance.
This will have to go in to be fixed.
I must say i love this car but reading this forum is making me little nervous!

1.9JTDM 18000 miles

Few minor niggles

Squeaky front door
Rear Seat belt occasionally will not return
Sat Nav hates any places beginnig with "W" takes an age to enter destination, occasional loss of recent call lists and destinations.
Hopefully these will be fixed today as the car is in for it's first service.

Apart from that the car has been a joy, it is just over a year old now and with hindsight,I don't think I would have made a different choice, apart from having a CD changer fitted to go with the Sat Nav option.

I can now actually contirbute to this thread twice !!

159 1.9 JTS 07 Plate.....

Good Points:
Handles very well for a large saloon and turn in is excellent as is mid-corner stability (I put that down to the GSD3's it's got fitted )
The fit and finish is excellent with next to no rattles (See Below )
All the switches etc. seem to work without any apparent problems faults
No false alarms from the errrr....... Alarm
It's very comfotable to drive over long distances (Thank feck )

Bad Points:
Death Rattle from the boot at anything over 50 mph
Shocking fuel consumption - average of just 24.1mpg so far
The 1.9 engine is totally under powered for this size/weight of car
The car seems to attract heat whilst parked up and becomes a oven on sunny days (Thank feck the AC works very well )




Oh yeah...... and it doesn't get as many admiring looks as the Brera

Join the gang with the airflow valve sticking - my earlier thread quoted....

1) Persistant problems with the airflow valve (triggering flat spots and hesitancies and the EOBD light to come on and the car go into "safe mode" which lowers the power output to almost dangerously low levels.) Part to be replaced under warranty (but on back-order from Italy so I guess others have suffered similarly). 10 hour job, apparently, meaning new cambelt too...what happens when the car is out of warranty?!...

Job just carried out - 8 hours labour plus cost of new manifold and...replacement cambelt which has to come out to do the manifold stuff (all under warranty, but it has put the wind up me for the when the car is out of warranty - if I keep it that long...) I can't believe they designed it this way! Actually they didn't...it is all part and parcel of having to add bits and and pieces to "clean this", "recycle that" to meet latest EURO emission regs that were not part of the original engine design. This leads to impossible in situ access for many serviceable parts and adds to the cost of maintenance. My dealer quotes £1053 for the 72,000 service on the 159 2.4 JTDM (cambelt!) probably more than the value of the care when it gets there in 2 years time...groan!

Originally Posted by colinbrera

Just joined this forum, wish I had before I decided to buy a Brera.
As I have already posted, i am very disappointed with the mpg from the 2.4JTDM. Even dring at a constant 60mph with a light right foot can I get nearer the 40 mpg claimed for the combined. The extra urban of 51 is just not possible. Official figures are over rated by at least 30%, and now having read some of the other comments it appears the diesels are some of the best!! the figures quoted as "government figures" were supplied to the VCA by Alfa Romeo and were clearly wrong.

My car as delivered with delivery miles had squealing brakes, a noise under the dash, a sun blind that didn't work, seat belts that didn't retract and a passenger seat that only locked in the fully back position.

First dealer fixed the sun blind, said nothing wrong with brakes and nothing wrong with noise under dash. Oh and in their fixing of the sun blind they returned the car with a large crack in the panoramic roof. So the car was returned for a new glass roof.

Second dealer said straight away that the noise under the dash was not normal and fixed that, and modified the trim by the seat belts which now retract satisfactorily ( 2 more visits).
During the visit to get the seat belts fixed, I mentioned the seat had started rocking so that is being addressed today.

However yesterday the engine attention light came on, and this is apparently due to a stuck valve in the inlet manifold. I will need to take the car in again once a spare has been delivered for that.

Brakes don't squeal much now, passenger seat still doesn't work correctly, but no one gets in the back so doesn't really matter.

Speaker covers now rattle so loudly that any music sounds dredful. In reality the stereo in my Wife's, three year old 1.4L focus sounds far better than the one in the Brera.

Dealer No 1 doesn't even return my emails now. They have tested the car twice for mpg, but will not confirm on paper (despite telling me verbally) that the car's management system is working correcty.
I wrote a recorded deliverey letter to Alfa UK customer service. No answer. I have emailed them over 20 times. Actually had someone call me two weeks ago full of apologies, he would take the issue staright to his manager but I have heard nothing since. When they did answer some emails, I got 4 replies exactly the same as they had obviously just bulk replied to their in box. I don't think