[Navlet]

Yesterday I had a test drive in a 2 year old Misano Blue Veloce, not a long one and the roads were wet but enough to get a sense of the car...

First impressions were the turbines are much better in the flesh than pictures, although who wouldn't want QV style alloys. The colour is amazing even on a dull grey day it stood out heads and shoulders above the usual monochrome offerings. The car itself is beautiful, muscular and sleek lots of curves, its stance was surprisingly low and menacing. Am I correct in thinking newer cars have been raised ?
Inside the cabin was very good, nice layout and the quality for me was very good. Everybit as good as my Volvo R Design which has a very nice comfortable interior. The door access which Clarkson referred to in his review of the car was not an issue for me.
On the road the steering was a delight - crisp and sharp, the ride smooth and not to hard much better than my Spider and Volvo. The performance was more than enough for my wife who pleaded me to slow down when the trade plate flew of the dash onto her lap when seeing what it could do, and that wasn't even full throttle :devious:.
Overall very impressed and after spending today in our garage rearranging shelves and decluttering I think it would just fit in OK.

As has been said before the only think for me that could have been better was the exhaust note, the car was so refined, quite and smooth for me it was almost missing something. I know this could be addressed with an Exhaust upgrade and would be interested to know peoples experiences with this and is there one which is regarded as being the "go to solution" ?

Appreciate any thoughts.

 

[cue2]

The steering. That steering!
The whole car feels together. Did you get any of the scrubbing of the front wheels when manoeuvring? It’s because the wheel remains totally vertical all the time. Did you do the boot slam? A bit slappy compared to the overall rigidity of the body but how often do yo open it...
You know you want one.
Do you have permission from your wife?

 

[caymanblack]

I totally agree these cars really are that good, even though i have hit my head a couple of times on that boot.

 

[cue2]

I used to find it amusing and bemusing seeing my neighbour waiting for his Tesla tailgate to electrically open but now I’m used to it on the Stelvio. It’d be interesting to know what the action of a manual version would be like. I heard that towards the end of the buying process for a family car the husband and wife will spend the last half hour in front of an open tailgate talking. This never happened with the Giulia after my wife closed the boot. It also seemed too wide inside but the Stelvio didn’t to her, perhaps because the seats are higher. The Veloce spec is nice looking on the Giulia.

 

[Navlet]

The steering. That steering!
The whole car feels together. Did you get any of the scrubbing of the front wheels when manoeuvring? It�s because the wheel remains totally vertical all the time. Did you do the boot slam? A bit slappy compared to the overall rigidity of the body but how often do yo open it...
You know you want one.
Do you have permission from your wife?

No Ackerman effect ( think thats what its called) from front but didnt do any tight turns - the salesman got the car out the car park.
Boot lid was opened to see the size of boot and see where the battery is tbh never noticed it feeling slappy in fact it may have been the wife that closed it. Yes I want, no, need one and my wife is all for it - she is a proper petrol head . As ever my heart says yes my brain says wait till the time is right. I am captain sensible sometimes as demonstrsted by driving a Volvo as a daily all be it a V40 D4 so not slow. I have a policy maturing in a few months and with interest rates so low my man maths says by the car and spend the money before inflation eats into it.
So in short I will get one lots are becoming available after 2 year lease deals are ending but it will be in new year. Hooraahh

 

[Isotope]

I have noticed the scrubbing on tight manoeuvres, I've got a 2 year old Giulia on 18" wheels, very noticeable doing 3 point turns, I used to notice it a bit on my giulietta but I guess the suspension bushes will have worn and that's why I don't get it anymore? Navlet, you are correct Ackermann steering geometry was patented in 1818, having looked it up the Giulia probably is set up with reverse Ackermann configuration geometry and that accounts for the scrubbing? I might be totally wrong but made sense to me from what I read?.

 

[matty74]

You won’t regret it

You’ll be surprised how tight the turning circle is.

I do a u-turn when I get home from work, it didn’t take me long to realise the car would easily do this without having to go full lock and no scrubbing as a result.

Think sometimes it’s habit to use full lock, not always necessary on the Giulia ... The steering is sublime



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[VeloceMitch]

Interesting that Cue2 mentioned the electric tailgate, I know it’s a Stelvio thing, but I often wonder how people get on with Dogs with those.
Ours would have jumped back out long before the tailgate shut, I think it would have been like a comedy sketch!.

 

[cue2]

We don’t have dogs but here’s a thread
https://www.alfaowner.com/Forum/alfa-stelvio/1183181-stelvio-owners-boot-and-dogs.html

 

[Jac2]

Firstly a very big thank you to everyone on the forum who comment and feedback on the Giulia. I have to confess I comment infrequently but have used the valuable information to good advantage. I started my Alfa experience with a 2008 (58) 159 Ti 1.9. Eighteen months old with 11k on the clock it became a great workhorse for me as I used it for work for the next nine years. Never missed a beat and I was sad to say goodbye as I traded it for a Giulia Veloce just a week ago. The 159 was by now on 160k, the original clutch and although it had just gone through another MOT without any issues it was probably lining up some expense for me very soon. Work requirements had changed so a Veloce was an option.

So on to the Veloce I bought and the help the forum gave me. I originally had a test drive last year but at the time was not sure I liked the auto box option. So left it for a while and continued to read about the car on the forum.

Test drive No 2 and it was the car I was considering.

Went for a good long test drive, switched on the HRW, it didn't work, during the test drive the stop/start didn't work. When I returned from the test drive I checked the boot lid edge and there were signs of rust. All issues recorded on the forum. The good bits from the forum were also evident, it was a great drive, no issues this time for me with the auto box. I was sold on the car.

With the garage I discussed the HRW and also stop/start not working . They advised the car had not been used for a while and they would charge the battery to ensure it was ready to go when I collected the car. There was no quibble with regards to the rust on the boot lid, a new lid was ordered, painted and fitted.

I collected the car last Sunday. My first drive was for some 95 miles, I could not easily check the HRW since the car was dry but stop/start did not work until about 75 miles into the journey. The conditions for S/S were ok earlier in the journey but I thought that the 75 miles were enough for the battery to sufficiently charge, hence S/S starting to work. A damp start the next day so a chance to see if the HRW worked, it didn't. I spoke to the garage who agreed to check the car again. The drive to the garage would break my journey home (250 miles) and to some extent I hoped the 95 miles to the garage would get S/S working again. It didn't. The garage checked the car, confirmed the HRW did work but that the battery needed to be at 85% charged for S/S to work. They also suggested a Ctek battery charger. In my view it should not be necessary use a charger if you use the car on a regular basis, which I will be doing. The journey home (145 miles) did not get the battery into a condition which enabled S/S to work but the HRW did work although it was rather feeble.

The garage will be contacted again tomorrow and advised of the position. What is disappointing is that the boot lid was changed without any query, but the battery seems to be another matter, as others have reported. I think it is the battery at fault, not able to take a full charge any more. I plan to use my local independent garage to do some further tests.

To finish this essay, I probably will not use S/S but for me it is an indication there is something wrong with the battery or the systems that support the battery.

 

[Isotope]

I've had my Giulia for about 8 weeks now and it's our second car, the Guilietta does the most of the journeys we do. However I find Stop/Start on the Giulia works when you least expect it, the car probably gets driven every other day, last week we went to Heathrow and it never worked at all on a 250 mile journey. Car was sat on the drive for 24hrs, went out in the dark, headlights on, heated seats on, steering wheel heat on and the stop start worked so much it annoyed me. I don't like the fact it only works from the driver pushing the footbrake, I think it could be a bit cleverer, I think if you put the handbrake on it should wait to start again till you try to pull off again using the throttle, or something like that?

I also have experienced the HRW not working when I expected it to, but people on here say that it is intentional and not a fault, depends on battery condition apparently?

 

[Jac2]

I also use a manual diesel golf which has stop/start. Stop/Start only operates when you take the car out of gear and take your foot off the clutch. So the driver has control of whether stop/start works or not. A better option might be that stop/start only operates if you select neutral. As soon as you select drive the engine starts again.

 

[Isotope]

My manual Giulietta works from pressing the clutch as well, that works really well because there is a time delay associated with pressing the clutch, selecting a gear and then finding the biting point before you take off. On an auto box, that can change gear in milliseconds I've not had the car long enough to find a less annoying control philosophy option to offer yet!

 

[smarty156]

I've had my Giulia for about 8 weeks now and it's our second car, the Guilietta does the most of the journeys we do. However I find Stop/Start on the Giulia works when you least expect it, the car probably gets driven every other day, last week we went to Heathrow and it never worked at all on a 250 mile journey. Car was sat on the drive for 24hrs, went out in the dark, headlights on, heated seats on, steering wheel heat on and the stop start worked so much it annoyed me. I don't like the fact it only works from the driver pushing the footbrake, I think it could be a bit cleverer, I think if you put the handbrake on it should wait to start again till you try to pull off again using the throttle, or something like that?

I also have experienced the HRW not working when I expected it to, but people on here say that it is intentional and not a fault, depends on battery condition apparently?

Put it in Park rather than just the handbrake with it still in Drive (why would you do that anyway? You're leaving the gearbox to fight against the handbrake).
Engine will stay off when it's in Park and you release your foot from the foot brake.

 

[Andy Bowden]

Put it in Park rather than just the handbrake with it still in Drive (why would you do that anyway? You're leaving the gearbox to fight against the handbrake).
Engine will stay off when it's in Park and you release your foot from the foot brake.

Surely the system should have been designed to be clever enough to know that when the parking brake is on the gearbox shouldn't be trying to drive the car?

I always disable stop/start, in fact I now have @epsonix's clever gadget installed.

My habit is to select neutral by pulling up on both paddles when coming to a stop at lights, for example, and to apply the parking brake when stationary. I find this results in much smoother stops preventing the gearbox's creep function fighting the brakes.

I only put the gearbox in Park when I know I'm going to stop the engine.

Andy

 

[Isotope]

Put it in Park rather than just the handbrake with it still in Drive (why would you do that anyway? You're leaving the gearbox to fight against the handbrake).
Engine will stay off when it's in Park and you release your foot from the foot brake.

But then when you want to go again, you're not in D, so you then have to select it, does the engine restart at that point without pushing thestarter button, if so I haven't got there yet so not very obvious or intuitive? But you may have given me another take on what I'm trying to get too. There are so many permutations and preferences that might suit a few more people than just me but the stop start on a manual car makes a lot more sense to me.

 

[ForzaAlfa]

I totally agree these cars really are that good, even though i have hit my head a couple of times on that boot.

Was the boot okay?

 

[cue2]

But then when you want to go again, you're not in D, so you then have to select it, does the engine restart at that point without pushing thestarter button, if so I haven't got there yet so not very obvious or intuitive? But you may have given me another take on what I'm trying to get too. There are so many permutations and preferences that might suit a few more people than just me but the stop start on a manual car makes a lot more sense to me.

I couldn’t describe how many of these permutations work but I’m sure if I thought about them too much they’d no longer be intuitive!