Alfa Romeo-Safety and reliability

By Stuart Johnston

Alfa Romeo is one of the great names in the cannon of automobilia. And for the second year in a row, an Alfa Romeo product is one of the AutoTrader Car of the Year finalists.

Alfa Romeo is a name that has been around for over 100 years, and in South Africa it began to make a real waves in the 1950s, when the likes of its Giulietta sedans and Giulietta coupes and Spyders became legendary on the streets and on the race tracks.

These were entry premium-level sports models of their time, expensive but attainable (just) by the ordinary man or woman on a wage or salary.

And the same pretty much goes for the Alfa Romeo brand today. The company offers models ranging from the Giulietta 1.4TB at around R364 000 to the Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde, an all-wheel-drive super-sedan powered by what is, for all intents and purposes, a miniaturised Ferrari engine!

That top-of-the-range Giulia model will set you back R1 426 000 or so, but you can get into the basic Giulia at R616 900. And as for the latest Car of the Year contender,  the entry-level model Stelvio  costs R834 900 and it is rated by many experts as one of the best SUVs they have driven!

And yet! And yet….. The sales are simply not there. Alfa Romeo, under  Fiat-Chrysler South Africa control, has not exactly set the sales world alight in recent times, despite offering excellent product. The problem is that at a crucial time in the company’s history, Alfa Romeo South Africa let quality slip, and it has been paying the price ever since.

In the early to mid-1980s, Alfas were selling well. But the cars churned out  at the company’s factory in Brits, due west of Pretoria, were riddled with stupid quality problems.  Then Alfa pulled out of the country for so-called political reasons. And that stigma has stuck until today.

Reliability of modern Alfas

Engines and gearboxes were never an issue with Alfa Romeos. It was the build quality of bodies that rusted, electrics that weren’t cobbled together properly and items like windows that suddenly plummeted into the depths of the door slots that gave modern  Alfas such a burden to bear.

Your modern Alfa Romeo is endowed with brilliantly-conceived engines, offering effortlessly smooth performance that is, by all accounts, extremely reliable. Laurie Steyn, who has run his Alfa Clinic workshop for older Alfas in down-town Jo’burg for decades, says that the modern Alfas that he services (once they are out of warranty) are just as reliable as any other car out there

You have to give an Alfa TLC

“There is one proviso, regarding Alfa Romeos, and this has always been the case. You have to maintain them properly. And in the case of the modern smaller turbo engines using the MultiAir system, it is vitally important that the correct oil is used when oil changes are down.

“The reason for this is, if a poor quality oil is used, or even one that doesn’t suit the engine, the little tiny oil passages that operate the MultiAir variable valve timing system get clogged, and then you can pick up problems.”

Spares are not cheap, but availability is reasonable

Alfa spares are also not cheap, says another non-franchised workshop owner, although availability is pretty good according to Steyn. One of the factors regarding spares is that, because Alfas haven’t sold here in great numbers for some time, it is generally not possible to buy less expensive non-franchised parts, such as brake pads, wiper blades and the like.

Very good warranty and service plan

As for newer cars, still under warranty, Alfa Romeos currently enjoy one of the better warranty and maintenance plan systems. Every new Alfa comes with a six year/90 000 km service plan and a five year/150 000 km warranty. That makes much better reading than many of the premium-level German products in this price range,  and from a warranty point of view, this includes Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi.

More reliable than you think?

The respected British motoring publication What Car, which is seen as the consumer “bible” amongst British motoring journals, recently analysed data from over 18 000 car owners, which took in 159 models and 32 different car brands. The topic was “reliability” and the Alfa Romeo Giulia beat all its respected German rivals in this 2018 survey.

Alfas, it has to be said, enjoy a much more positive image in the UK than they do here, largely because the UK cars dating back to the 1960 through to the 1980s  were assembled in Italy, and not in Brits!

Safety

In the fields of safety, Alfa Romeo also had some surprises in store in 2018, especially regarding that COTY finalist, the Stelvio.  When the Stelvio was put through the Euro NCAP safety test last year it not only earned the expected five stars, but topped its category with a score of 97 per cent for protection of adult occupants.

This score was due to a lightweight body that is extremely rigid and strong in the right places, as well as the presence of a host of safety features. One of these was Autonomous Emergency Braking, known as AEB, which is a stand feature on every Stelvio version.

The Stelvio is based on the Giulia platform, which also offers similar levels of safety to occupants.

And in terms of safety, a factor not often mentioned in analysing safety is that the generally excellent handling characteristics of all Alfas, as well as extremely communicative controls, play a major role in keeping drivers involved, and thus alert to any impeding dangerous situation.