What's wrong with Alfa's quality?

ugly history

I'm a big fun of Alfa romeo, my father runs over 150.000km in his 166 (diesel engine) and then he sell it without any problem. I think that your friend's 166 is unlucky(i know it's unacceptable).
When your friend sell the car convince him to drive a new 159, another quality.

Anyway i'm sorry for your friend

 

I´ve got an Alfa 166 V6. 100000 km and no problems!

159 seems to be a well built car. It has a very good torsional stiffness! I`d prefer it to a 166 today, because I don`t like the facelifted nose of the present 166 version.

 

My uncle had a very rare Alfa "Montreal"... He spent years restoring it and there was always something wrong...

My first Italian sports car was an Alfa Graduate spider... It was always in the shop, but I LOVED that car when it was running. Still miss it...

Alfas are the epitome of the finicky, but soulful, Italian cars.

 

We have owned a 3.0 166 six speed for about 3.5 years. 166 ownership has been most rewarding. I would advise against selling once everything is sorted out. It is expected that the issues should average out with few problems going forward. The engine is just glorious.

 

This car is just testing your friend's patience to see if he is worthy-once it gets sorted it will be excellent.

Relative of mine from Italy who was in the States for the holidays says his 159 is fantastic.....

How about a MB SL with 600 miles that needs a new tranny? How about a client of mine who had to have a Bentley Continental GT lemon lawed due to tranny/differential issues-Bentley gave her a new car that she sold after it had electrical gremlins. Is it too much to ask for a CD player to work on a $175K car??

No car is perfect......

 

LOL....this is funny my uncle had a 159 for years no problems at all, so what does he do goes and buys a BMW 3 series because his friend has one, now his BMW has only 340 miles on it and has been in the shop 4 times already nothing but problems...you should hear him curse himself out for making such a big mistake.

 

Time ago the Italian government decided to force companies with a certain networth to produce a certain % of their products in the economically weak and poor south of the country. Since forced to produce in the south, the employees in the factories did not care much about the quality products, hence you can have the bad luck of having bought a car that was produced in the South.

 

159 is built in south of italy

 

I've always owned them big Alfas. 164/164Super/164Qv and last till a few months back, a 166 3.0V6 that I had for 3 years and 76kkm. No problems whatsoever except the anticipated appetite for front tyres!

The first south of Italia Alfa Romeo was called the Alfasud. Superlative handling compact but rusts like nothing else on earth...! Accredited with the slipshod assembly technique and the use of Soviet Steel that's very rust -prone.

166s are great executive cars, period, and a very viable alternative to BMWs.

 

My two alfa's never gave me any particular trouble just kept them maintained and drove them as they should be which is to say 80mph+ I don't know how you could say an alfa isn't a quality car. The styling of the exterior and interior even the engines all looks and feels fantastic. The engines are really special.

 

Unfortunately the recent effort by Alfa to set a new quality standart and reliability have yet to be in full effect for RHD, its a small market for them so they unfortunately cut corners on theyr RHD models

 

3/4 of every Alfa car is manufactured in Romania, Slovenia, Poland, China, and other technologically and quality "inferior" countries.

Thanks to the Euro, many Italian and German parts manufacturers have been put out of business, and work shipped to the cheap labour countries listed above.

Half the parts are scrapped, and if they make it to Alfas assembly line, they have a hard time fitting and performing, because the quality is very poor. I was in Italy last year, and was talking at length with suppliers and manufacturers for the Italian auto industry on this subject.


Same scenario with VW in Mexico, half the parts and entire car is made there, and look at whats happening to VW's quality and reputation....

 

Alfas are fabulous cars, and can last very long if maintained properly.