Yet Another Giulia Breaks Down During A Test Evaluation - Is The Car Going To Fail Before It Gets Out Of the Gate?

BONG BONG BONG. The dashboard had lit up like a Christmas tree. Power was gone. The whole car started shuddering. We were in a 2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia with just barely 1,709 miles on the odometer, and it was already breaking down.

Have you ever wanted the authentic Alfa Romeo experience? Because we were getting it now.

Read Article

mre30 - 7/14/2017 8:24:49 AM

+1 Boost

To quote Michael Balaban from Jalopnik in speaking about the Alfa Giulia...

"I’d love to come out here right now and say “man, sometimes these press cars are thrashed, and they can get weird!” I’d love to say that absolutely nothing could go wrong with developing an entire car in only two-and-a-half years. I’d love to say this was an isolated, one-off incident, but it isn’t."

Change "Alfa Giulia" to "Tesla Model 3" and he can probably recycle the same quote in 6 months time.

MDarringer - 7/14/2017 8:58:45 AM

+1 Boost

When you create a mongrel of a platform by chopping down a Ghibli...

When you create a new engine by sawing two cylinders off a V8...

But do absolutely no engineering work...

You get this crap storm.

Alfa was supposed to become a miracle savior brand like Jeep and Ram, but more than likely the Giorgio platform will sink the company give that the Stelvio is likely to be as bad. With any luck, a takeover can happen before the taint of the Giulia spoils the American brands.

carsnyc - 7/14/2017 9:42:25 AM

+4 Boost

This is pretty unfortunate. I think the car is a looker inside and out and I wanted Alfa to do well. What a pity.

cidflekken - 7/14/2017 11:54:00 AM

+4 Boost

Dear Italy, stick to food and Ferraris.

malba2367 - 7/14/2017 3:33:54 PM

+4 Boost

Its too bad. The Guilia is a great looking car, and the QV version offers legit performance. Many would be willing to overlook the interior that is not quite up to snuff, but these reliability issues will be a death knell to the brand unless they fix it quick. They need to come come clean, fix all the issues quickly and offer the affected owners a 7/100k mile warranty to make things right. Once they get their quality up to snuff they should take a page from VW and offer a long warranty as standard to attract buyers until their reputation improves.

david999 - 7/15/2017 2:04:53 PM

+2 Boost

They reviewed the QV version and loved it depite the flaws:

http://jalopnik.com/2017-alfa-romeo-giulia-quadrifoglio-the-jalopnik-revie-1793422969

MDarringer - 7/15/2017 3:53:33 PM

+1 Boost

Yeah, but they don't have to live with the spit pile.

The Ghibli has a few reliability issues but NOTHING to this level.

iamdabest1 - 7/17/2017 9:34:30 AM

+2 Boost

i was in the shop with stupid electrical problems about every 6 weeks , thankfully the ghibli never died on me or left me stranded, but this crap with alfa not being able to finish test runs against M3's and amg's is just unacceptable.

mini22 - 7/17/2017 1:07:32 PM

+1 Boost

The problems I've been reading about seem to be centered on the V6 turbo rather than the turbo 4. I have also spoken with my dealership. They indicate that left foot braking causes the car to go into limp mode. Also there is an issue with the stop/start mode. Otherwise the turbo 4's have been pretty good. That's a good thing as this is the volume model to be sold. The four has plenty of power and is very refined. The transmission shifts smooth. The chassis is great with a great suspension over bad roads. I drove one for over 30 minutes last week without issue. Saying this Marchionne rushed this car to the market as a result of changing his mind on changing over from FWD based to RWD. I think though the V6 may have been rushed into the market too soon without proper development of it's engine management systems. Alfa needs to get this right or they are in trouble.