Nearly Did !

Anonymous · July 8, 2004, 09:15

I work for a Commercial Vehicle centre and some guy Part-Ext an ALFA 156 2.5 v6
Padal gear change. 30,000miles, not a scratch. All leather sports pack 0-60 around 6ish. My boss said I could have it for 5K as he owes me a favour. This would mean I get to sell my 2, have an OK car. ( like them or dislike them ) plus about 6k put back into the bank for the house.( sort of need the cash ). Took the alfa for a few test drives and was about to take it home. When I was asked to move my own car. I sat back in mr2 and I said NA, cant do it. Love her too much. How could I have even thought about it. She may have a few scratches due to supermarket parking ( pricks who open the doors into you ). Pre-cats that could kill my engine in about another 5,000 miles. But no way could I part with her. She is going to be put in the scrap yard the day I die and no sooner. Im sad I know.

james

GSB · July 8, 2004, 09:22

Also, I cant think of many better ways to piss money away than buying an Alfa... s:wink: :wink: s:wink:

Anonymous · July 8, 2004, 09:26

How did i know id get flamed on the alfa bit, should have just said another car. lol

GSB · July 8, 2004, 09:39

Not flaming at all, nearly bought one myself in fact. The 3 things that put me off were:

1/ The dealer wouldn't even give me a fiver off the list price
2/ I couldn't quite stomach the depreciation
3/ The sillyspeed gearbox is entertaining for a while, but ultimately it descends into the the realms of simply being crap.

Other than that, I love the cars. The 147 and 156 GTA's are fantastic. And although their lesser siblings are hopelessly outclassed by the competition in every normal sense, the Alfas seem to have far more presence, and to me are far more desirable.

zud · July 8, 2004, 11:57

I loved my Alfa (2.0 156 Selespeed), but I wouldn't dream of changing back... not even for that beautiful V6 growl!

The Sillyspeed (sorry, i'm nicking that name!) was quicker than SMT for changing up, but otherwise much less refined. And it was bloody expensive to fix... and there seem to be a lot that go wrong!

Alfa seem to think they're special enough to charge high prices, yet even they offer cr@p trade-ins (less than I got when i bought the '2!)

Shame really, 'coz there's certainly something about them that you either get or don't get. And I definitely "got it"... for a while!

kanujunkie · July 8, 2004, 13:02

wouldn't touch the Alfa with a very big barge pole, a mate of mine had it and ended up dumping it back on the forecourt, but only after it had caught on fire 3 times, had the belly nappy fall off 2 and just plain broken down a total of 8 times all in the first 6 months, they are just your typical Italian crap (Ferrari and Lambo's excluded!)

Anonymous · July 8, 2004, 20:09

One of my mates has an Alfa & his biggest complaint is crap dealers. No interst & no clue about any of his needs. I must admit though, some of the Alfas look great & drive well.

Anonymous · July 8, 2004, 21:05

My brother has the 2.5 v6 156 and i have had a go and have to say it is a very very decent motor. It got the full sports pack with air con and full recaro leather. Its got a superb 6 speed and handles like not much else! Had it gas conterted as was a bit thirsty. It has, What would look stupid on any other car, a huge wing which does work...
Beautiful car IMO

Not the 2 though....

Anonymous · July 9, 2004, 14:14

A mate of mine took a 156 GTA for a test-drive a few months ago. Unfortuantely, the test drive was cut short when a load of white smoke(!) started coming inside the car from the internal vents!!! s:shock: :shock: s:shock:

Needless to say, his doubts on the build quality were confirmed s:roll: :roll: s:roll: and he went back to to his A4 quattro.

Sundance s8)

s8)