A true petrol head has owned.......

[SilverSaloon]

We had a Alfa 146 and it was a nice enough car - a little "pocket rocket" like they say.

part exchanged it when it started to run badly. Wife liked it more than me, but at that time I had also purchased a CLK so it couldnt really compare...

 

[jdrrco]

why aren't there stranded vectra's Saabs and Astra's everywhere if this is true.

Cos Alfa make good cars and engines now!!

(Something to do with being run by a German)

Dealers are still c**p, though, but having owned 4 MBs I'm used to that!

 

[jdrrco]

Can diesel car drivers be petrol heads?

To be a dieselhead, do I have to make a strange clattering noise and smell funny?

 

[Dieselman]

Lets extend that. Can diesel car drivers be petrol heads?

Would they want to be..??

And why aren't there stranded vectra's Saabs and Astra's everywhere if this is true.

It's actually a Fiat unit and they do indeedy supply GM with their car diesel engines.

 

[Dieselman]

To be a dieselhead, do I have to make a strange clattering noise and smell funny?

Thought you already did..

 

[grober]

"you're not a true petrol head unless you've owned an Alfa Romeo"..
Maybe the correct statement should be ---"you're not a true petrol head unless you own an Alfa Romeo". It may be a motoring "rite of passage" but eventually drivers see the light and the"lure of the three pointed star" becomes irresistible.

 

[jdrrco]

It's actually a Fiat unit

Alfa = Fiat - same company, just a branding exercise, like Mercedes & Maybach

 

[oldcro]

Does a Morris 100 van as a first car class me as a true Petrol Head?

 

[jdrrco]

eventually drivers see the light and the"lure of the three pointed star" becomes irresistible.

I went Alfa, Mercedes, Mercedes, Subaru, Mercedes, Alfa...

All this talk of following stars and seeing the light is getting a bit "Life of Brian" for me. They're only cars you know!

 

[jdrrco]

Does a Morris 100 van as a first car class me as a true Petrol Head?

Definitely!

In that case...

My first and second cars were Beetles!!

 

[st4]

Alfa = Fiat - same company, just a branding exercise, like Mercedes & Maybach

So can I ask the question again, why aren't there stranded vectras astras and saabs just littering our hardshoulders.

 

[Dieselman]

Alfa = Fiat - same company, just a branding exercise, like Mercedes & Maybach

Not exactly.
Fiat are the parent company and make everything. Alfa is just a trading name for a particular brand within the empire.
There are many brands within FIAT.

 

[st4]

There are many brands within FIAT.

Including Ferrari. Doesn't make them reliable though.

 

[jdrrco]

So can I ask the question again, why aren't there stranded vectras astras and saabs just littering our hardshoulders.

I refer the hon gentleman to my previous answer

 

[jdrrco]

Including Ferrari. Doesn't make them reliable though.

And yet they are!

How many broken down Alfas, Fiats, Maseratis or Ferraris have you seen at the side of the road?

How many broken down Renaults?

Bet the answer to the second question is far higher! And yet which one has the "better" reputation?

I did 52,000 miles in my E270 in two years and it needed over £7,000 spending on it for bits going wrong excluding servicing costs (at nearly £800 a pop).

My 156 needed £0, repeat £0 spent on it excluding servicing (at around £250).

Don't get me wrong, I love Mercedes but they've just lost their way a bit at the moment with boxy styling and cheap interiors. Engineered like no other car in the world? Not any more.

Another triumph of spin over substance, perhaps?

 

[st4]

MB spend more on R&D than any other car manufacturer. BlackC55 mentioned a fella who had an E270cdi with 480k miles on the clock. An S class has 670k+ on it.

Your Alfa sounds like a wednesday car, and your Merc a real monday special. No car is perfect (I saw rust on a L Reg Lexus today). I wouldn't touch a Renaut/Citreon/Peugot with a bargepole either

 

[jdrrco]

MB spend more on R&D than any other car manufacturer. BlackC55 mentioned a fella who had an E270cdi with 480k miles on the clock. An S class has 670k+ on it.

Your Alfa sounds like a wednesday car, and your Merc a real monday special. No car is perfect (I saw rust on a L Reg Lexus today). I wouldn't touch a Renaut/Citreon/Peugot with a bargepole either

I agree that my E-class wasn't typical, but my CLK had expensive problems too. The C before them & the 190 were faultless.

My Alfa hasn't been unusual though, as many people who've owned more recent ones will testify. As Alfa are improving standards as time goes by, there are few who would disagree that the older Mercs are the better ones sadly, so their standards are dropping.

I know there are many high mileage Mercs out there - my E may go on to be a 500k+ miler. However, that wasn't my point.

My point was how much had to be spent on it in 52,000 miles compared to the Alfa. Extrapolating that forward, to get it to 520k miles would cost £70k+ in repairs plus triple the servicing costs. You could buy four Alfas for the same cost and would have less hassle and stress plus the fun of four new cars!

All that extra spending on R&D isn't producing better cars.

 

[MBManInKen]

(I saw rust on a L Reg Lexus today)

Well, a bit of rust on a 14/15 year old car is not really an example of bad engineering.

Imagine - purely hypothetically speaking of course - that there would be Mercedes models of less than half that age with rust commonly found on them, that would be shocking .

 

[andy_k]

there's more rust (albeit mostly trivial surface rust) on our '95 W124 than there was on our old 1990 Peugeot 405 or our '93 Sierra both of which had been true "seaside" cars.

There's more rust on our 1978 W123 than there was on the '72 Beetle - even before I started welding new bits in, now it's got less rust than the 3 year old MB our neighbour owns and will probably last a lot longer

They are great cars but rust is something that seems to affect them all regardless of model, age or how well you look after them

Andy

 

[glojo]

I always thought a true, genuine petrolhead needed to own a Caterham!

Regards
John