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I agree with the V-man, - if their position (near the bottom) in all the recent reliability surveys is correct, this could prove an extremely expensive commercial decision by Alfa !!!!!
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What cynics! Has any of you owned a modern Alfa or are you just speculating?
Anyhow, I dont see any other company offering such a warranty (I believe Hyundi used to but now have a 3 year?)
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Modern Alfas still offer below-average reliability, but it's quite possible to have a trouble free relationship with one (I know two people who've done big mileages in 156s with no issues at all). The 147 seems less well-sorted.
A 5 year warranty would certainly do a lot to tempt me, with the proviso that I had a good local dealer - because I'd still expect to visiting them on a fairly regular basis.
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That's right, as all right thinking people know, without going near one, all Alfas are unreliable.
From the same detailed research I can also state that all BMW's are driven by pink fluffy dicers, all Saxo's have their fog lights on all the time, all Skodas are rubbish, all Rovers are driven by pensioners, all Americans talk too much, all french women have hairy armpits and all English people eat scones with strawberry jam at precisely 11:00 am each morning and take tea with the vicar.
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I was going to add
' and everyone knows that VW's are very reliable' but that was too sarcastic, even for me.
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All of the stereotypes you quote are of course just that and are not backed up by numerous surveys which confirm them to be true. In the case of reliability surveys, I've never seen one in which Alfa came anything other than very close to the bottom.
VW is a case in point, the reliability surveys used to show they were very good but more recently that seems to have changed significantly. Whilst the traditional assumption of unquestionable VW reliability still exists in places anyone reading the tech pages will know that it won't persist for much longer unless our esteemed part time member Sean and his colleagues get their fingers out.
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VW is a case in point, the reliability surveys used to show they were very good but more recently that seems to have changed significantly. Whilst the traditional assumption of unquestionable VW reliability still exists in places anyone reading the tech pages will know that it won't persist for much longer unless our esteemed part time member Sean and his colleagues get their fingers out.
Unfortunately I'm not sure you're correct about this part. I think VW's reliability has been dropping for a long while, and people who are interested in this sort of thing have known for years that if reliability is what you're after, you're better off buying Japenese, yet amongst the general public, VW still have a reputation for being the most reliable.
I have friends with VW's who are entirely convinced by their reliability, despite their own car not conforming to it, as far as they're concerned, it must be a fluke, sicne everyone knows VW's are reliable. I think most people are unwilling to let evidence get in the way of what they 'know'.
They're also still convinced that my Alfa is horribly unreliable, despite it proving this not to be the case.
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Your are of course correct that many people form false impressions based on very little. Also, when I said recently in connection with VW I meant recent years. However, my point is that the fact that your Alfa (and PR's by the sound of it) is reliable doesn't mean they all are. The surveys show that - it's not just ill informed people knocking the marque.
I should add that although my 'tag' implies I'm some sort of Volvo fanatic I'm not. I've never owned two cars of the same make and although happy with my car, don't know what I'll buy next. I would, however, tend to base my decision more on the results of a series of trusted and detailed reliability surveys than on my own experience of, say, 1 car or indeed anyone else's individual opinions on what I was considering buying.
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I should add that although my 'tag' implies I'm some sort of Volvo fanatic I'm not. I've never owned two cars of the same make and although happy with my car, don't know what I'll buy next.
That's OK, my tag implies that I have some sort of interest in bears, which isn't the case. It's a long story....
BTW, my original post may have come across as somewhat combative, which was not the intent, I was just looking for a more amusing manner of putting my point across than just 'no, I disagree'.
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Chill out Carl - my post was not entirely serious :-)
Anyone offering a 5 year warranty deserves praise and I believe Hyundai still do with 3 years free servicing BTW. If the news is true perhaps Alfa know something we don't.
However, as regards commenting on cars you haven't owned/driven I can only say that:
a) from time to time we all comment on things we haven't done, places we haven't visited, people we haven't met and food we haven't eaten.
b) even if I had owned or driven a modern Alfa and immensely enjoyed the experience, that wouldn't alter the facts about the marque's well known reliability issues, relatively poor sales figures and miniscule market share.
That all said, if you own an Alfa and love it, good for you. I'm sure the 5 year warranty will be very good news for your wallet :-)
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That should of course read "Chill out PR..."
Apologies to Carl for a clear case of mistaken identity :-)
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Apologies Volvoman, I was slightly overzealous!
What Bazza says is right. Results were recently published in a satisfaction survey where VW plummeted. This was explained away by the well known coil problem with the 1.8T engine, and therefore dismissed as somewhat a fluke. This is typical IMHO, because its a manufacturer with a good reputation, it seems to be forgotten.If you were one of the many affected it would be scant consolation. Likewise someone has a problemn with an Alfa, all you get is that is so typical I dont know why you bother!
As for the reliability surveys, there is no denying Alfa always are near bottom. However, the last one I looked at in detail was last years Autoexpress. In this, out of 100 cars, the Alfa 156 came 91st in practicality!! (that was BELOW the Audi TT BTW). Any survey which says a 2 seater roadster with a very small boot is MORE practical than a 5 seater 4 door saloon with a good size boot is terribly flawed.
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No apologies required as no offence was taken PR :-)
As a driver with absolutely no sense of brand loyalty or preference I often forget just how attached to their cars many people are and how emotional an issue it can become when people criticise them.
Sometimes I wish I felt that passionately about cars - it'd make the process of selecting and buying one a hell of a lot less daunting!
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No apologies required as no offence was taken PR :-) As a driver with absolutely no sense of brand loyalty or preference I often forget just how attached to their cars many people are and how emotional an issue it can become when people criticise them.
Fair enough, some people buy any car just because they need to get around, so will obviously an economical choice, for this Ford/Vaux, etc etc are great for that. For others who want a bit more than 'just a car' there are alternatives, so it depends on your reason for buying.
Sometimes I wish I felt that passionately about cars - it'd make the process of selecting and buying one a hell of a lot less daunting!
Why dont you try and Alfa, now with 5 yr warranty ;) you might just be impressed! :p
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My 3.5 yr old 145 has been fine reliability wise. 2 main warranty issues, required a bit of arguing but they got sorted eventually.
Now obviously the surveys are flawed and are not entirely equal:
you pick 1000 cars from each mfr. Some will be better than others, some worse. For some mfrs you can pick the 999 cars which broke down, for another mfr you pick a batch of 1000 were only 1 broke down. What I think would be more useful would be a ratio of number built vs number of breakdowns, as opposed to 'randomly' selecting a fixed number.
Anyway, everyone knows you dont buy an Alfa for reliability, cheap running costs, availability of parts, etc - for that a mondeo would suffice. Instead you buy it for its uniqueness, sheer driving pleasure and fine italian styling.
Also i think a lot of people are comparing to the manufacturer images of about 20 years ago when Alfa's were unreliable and did rott, and where VW's were good, etc etc now it is all changing, and regardless of how Alfa compare to other mfrs, reliability over the 20 or so yrs ago has improved with all mfrs.
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It seems that the car-buying public have very long memories, but resistance to new information. Alfas have been increasingly reliable in recent years, particularly with the introduction of the current 147, 156, 166, GTV/Spider lineup. However, conventional wisdom that Alfas are bad is based on the (beautifully engineered) rustbuckets of the 'seventies and 'eighties. This is the same wisdom that states that all VW's are reliable - once again based on out-of date data.
Alfa Romeo's biggest problem is not the product - modern Alfas are fantastic - a definite cut above Vauxhalls, Fords, Peugeots (and Volvos ;) ) - but the dealer network. Even those of us who love Alfas hate the dealerships because of their poor product knowledge and bad customer service!
And don't forget that people who respond to surveys like JD Power tend to be whingers or old people with too much time on their hands (hence Honda's high position!)
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Perhaps the unreliability of various makes could partly be attributed to poor dealers? If they failed to fix problems first time round then there are going to be more failures per car and this will bump up the average. I think the statistics should be seen over time so that you could see the number of breakdowns (with categories for minor & major) per vehicle per set distance eg 10,000 miles. I think that would be more useful. This should also show which makers were on an upward trend and which were on a downward trend.
teabelly
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That is an excellent point Teabelly!
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Very good point TB. I wanted to put a point about my lack of 100% trust in these surveys, but couldn't quite find the right words. Your point is one of the issues I have with them.
Icarlisle has another interesting point actually, and amusingly continues the trend of stereotypes in this thread. I wonder what spin is put on the results of these surveys by the simple variable of 'what type of person fills in these surveys'? ;)
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