Life with the Alfa

bear1

So I thought I'd give a little sum up of how my travels back into an Alfa have panned out since the start of September.
I will admit, I was a little scared if the choice I was making was indeed going to be a smart one and not leave me in tears after what the Passat did and I almost almost thought myself out of buying it.
To start off, choosing the car took me a long time.
I wanted a certain engine and spec but found near on impossible to find all what I wanted combined.
The cars were either the wrong bhp, or were damaged or look liked heaps of ****.
In the end I decided to let go of one part of my list which was satnav and because the budget I had wouldn't let me go up the years I wanted I thought a resonable 2008 would suit me fine and so I let the satnav go as the maps would be 10 years old and useless to me.
And voila, she showed up. A beauty in Nero Carbonio, black teledials and red heated leather. I was in love.
2 weeks later it was in my drive.
It had give or take 200k on the clock and with 0 evidence of the belt being done I booked this in first thing and also I noticed it felt a bit reserved in it's acceleration so the inlet manifold was ripped out and a brand new one put in as the previous owner had make a balls of it and it was causing a fault code.
After that I decided to have an EGR/DPF and map done and sweet jesus did it transform the car. On the motorway is where it's king and can happily sit at 220km/h without making you panic and in pretty much silence.
It hasn't given me any grief in the 2 months and 5k I've put up on it.
Starts first time with 0 hesitation and for the first time in an Alfa, no rattles or bangs when driving.

It's also quite reasonable on fuel for a 4 wheel drive 2 tonne car:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=433806&stc=1&d=1511011041

bear1

Next up is the way it looks... I love it.
Almost 10 years old and it still looks great on the road and whereever i park it I always have to glance back.
Today was the first non ****ty day where I was actually able to get up and clean it and so far so good but the inside is in desperate need of a clean. I'll blame the child and the wife on that.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=433808&stc=1&d=1511011361

bear1

The Alfa has a quirk, which is something I had never seen on another car.
If you want to open the boot you have 2 options, 1 is with the key and the other is...

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=433809&stc=1&d=1511011490

bear1

And lastly I need to takle the alloys and the chrome exhausts which are pretty hard to keep clean.

Also made one slight adjustment to the rear

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=433810&stc=1&d=1511011619

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=433811&stc=1&d=1511011719

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=433812&stc=1&d=1511011719

bear1

To sum, comfortable, fast, reasonable on fuel and got a great insurance deal for the year which was over half less compared to the Passat.
Best car in ever? Probably not but the best car I've had in a long long time.
The Q4 system is seriously planted and it just doesn't let you get out of line no matter the weather.
I did try once to turn off the traction control and the weirdness it gave me when all 4 wheels started spinning was eerily arousing.
What I don't like, the steering is bit too heavy for a car this size so it takes a while to get used to it which makes parking a bit more annoying but with parking sensors all round you have a nice idea of how close you are to the car in frront of at the back.
The drivers seat mat... it drove me insane. Just kept getting stuck under the clutch pedal which then resulted in the pedal getting stuck.
No way of pinning it down so I've removed it for now. Stupid design.
The controls for the air conditioning and demisters are very close to the gear lever so if you are in say 3rd or 5th you can't see which button to press.
But I did discover that the car has Blue and Me! And it works amazingly and this was only noticed yesterday...
USB socket is great and no more cds all over the place.
So all things considered, a very good purchase

H3llR4iser

For some reason I was sure you had a 159 before...am I getting confused with someone else?

Enjoy the Pantera (it's what they call the 159 in Italy, "panther"...a reference to both the font end looks and the fact that the first ones around were the ones by the Police), which is probably one of the most unjustifiedly maligned cars of the last 20 years (cue in people posting "it's a glorified Vectra!" :D:D).

bear1

H3llR4iser wrote: »

For some reason I was sure you had a 159 before...am I getting confused with someone else?

Enjoy the Pantera (it's what they call the 159 in Italy, "panther"...a reference to both the font end looks and the fact that the first ones around were the ones by the Police), which is probably one of the most unjustifiedly maligned cars of the last 20 years (cue in people posting "it's a glorified Vectra!" :D:D).

I had a 156 many years ago but potentially you're thinking of 166man who bought his the same day I did

colm_mcm

I had a 146 back in the day and it had the boot button too, the only way to open the boot was either using the key in the lock on the boot, or by turning the engine off and pressing the button.

Tuco88

Nice car. Did you have it re-mapped? What bhp are they, nice ride to be fair.

Blazer

nice. One thing though..resize those pics..I'm on a 1440p 27" inch monitor and I still have to scroll sideways
Always loved the alfas but never had one.

bear1

Tuco88 wrote: »

Nice car. Did you have it re-mapped? What bhp are they, nice ride to be fair.

I did. The originally have either 200 or 210bhp.
Mine is the 210 but was quite down on power. Egr switched off same with the dpf and mapped to just over 250bhp.

bear1

Blazer wrote: »

nice. One thing though..resize those pics..I'm on a 1440p 27" inch monitor and I still have to scroll sideways
Always loved the alfas but never had one.

Oh, how would I resize them? I uploaded them on a 48" tv

H3llR4iser

bear1 wrote: »

I did. The originally have either 200 or 210bhp.
Mine is the 210 but was quite down on power. Egr switched off same with the dpf and mapped to just over 250bhp.

Just watch out for the torque figure - the one actual, annoying mechanical issue of the 159 was Alfa's ill advised choice to use GM gearboxes; You 2.4 uses the F40 which is already miles better than the M32 the 1.9 uses - but it's rated for "only" 400nm of torque (hence the "40" in "F40"), which the 2.4 can surpass quite easily when remapped

bear1

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Just watch out for the torque figure - the one actual, annoying mechanical issue of the 159 was Alfa's ill advised choice to use GM gearboxes; You 2.4 uses the F40 which is already miles better than the M32 the 1.9 uses - but it's rated for "only" 400nm of torque (hence the "40" in "F40"), which the 2.4 can surpass quite easily when remapped

I wouldn't need that figure at all but yes you are completely correct about the 1.9 and it's what turned me off as it's also coupled with more vulnerable swirl flops.

Wailin

Hard to believe how well they still look after 10 yrs. Fine looking motor bear. Just finding it hard to figure out how having sat nav on a ten yr old car would have much affect on price.

grogi

It is an offence to have the IRL (or any other International vehicle registration code) sign on the Polish car.

Nevertheless I am extremely happy that my black fortunetelling didn't work.

quadrifoglio verde

Bear the Alfa God's have forgiven you for your old 2.4 and rewarded you with reliability!
They're a real nice motorway cruiser alright, but lack the nimbleness of the predecessor in my experience
Enjoy

bear1

grogi wrote: »

It is an offence to have the IRL (or any other International vehicle registration code) sign on the Polish car.

Nevertheless I am extremely happy that my black fortunetelling didn't work.

Why an offence out of curiosity? I see loads of cars that have DK or jeeps with numerous stickers of countries they visited.

bear1

Wailin wrote: »

Hard to believe how well they still look after 10 yrs. Fine looking motor bear. Just finding it hard to figure out how having sat nav on a ten yr old car would have much affect on price.

Has no effect but i found it hard to get a car that had the nav, xenons and heated leather coupled with the engine I wanted.
I plan to get an android system in the near future so that I can then use my phone as the satnav

biko

bear1 wrote: »

Oh, how would I resize them? I uploaded them on a 48" tv

Not only do massive image break page layout, they also slow everything down for phone users.
I have removed the image tags so people can click on them instead.