[Needsdecaf]

I don't think there is brand snobbery in this thread. Where there is smoke, there is fire. The issues are real and it's just a matter if you're willing to put up with them or not. Again, see my earlier posts.

I think it's a total shame that this car has been so tainted by it's (apparently well deserved) reputation for unreliability. By all accounts it's one of the all time great driver's small sedans (and I do mean small, it's tighter than an F80, I sat in them both at the same car show when the F80 launched...yes that's how old the current Giulia is). But this is not 1970-1980. We can't excuse modern cars that fail with such regularity. It just shouldn't happen in this day and age.

Pity.

[Mr Friese]

As someone that has owned an e92, F80, F80cs and a G80, the Giulia Quad is superior to all of them from a drivers perspective, and not even close in some cases. I never had an issue with mine, but there's obviously some fire to that smoke.

That said.... given that the 2024 will the last hurrah and also comes with a host of improvements (LEDs, revised interior, mechanical LSD, etc.) does anyone think there's value in picking one up? I'm in a position to grab one right now (my previous was a 2018), but just weighing the merits.

[HeelToeShift]

Originally Posted by Mr Friese

As someone that has owned an e92, F80, F80cs and a G80, the Giulia Quad is superior to all of them from a drivers perspective, and not even close in some cases. I never had an issue with mine, but there's obviously some fire to that smoke.

That said.... given that the 2024 will the last hurrah and also comes with a host of improvements (LEDs, revised interior, mechanical LSD, etc.) does anyone think there's value in picking one up? I'm in a position to grab one right now (my previous was a 2018), but just weighing the merits.

Everytime I see one, I want one. I saw one this weekend and was in front of me for a bit on some local roads, and it seemed to have a modified exhaust. Wow did it sound great! I keep wondering if I should get one but I do love the G80 xdrive I do think the size is better. Despite the Quad being a good bit smaller and not AWD it weighs as much or more than the G80 does.

[baron95]

Originally Posted by Damage Inc

I've had a dozen M cars, 911's, R8, etc. The Quad was a special car. The steering, size, and rear feel of the car, amazing.

However after multiple untimely break downs, it forced me to get rid of it. Once I was in a left turn lane on an 6 lane highway - just DIED. Another in school line lol, another driving into a parking garage. Can you imagine?? LOL. It had to sit for 3 to 4 HOURS before it would start up. No tow truck can tow an Alfa without special tools.

One of the times it was 100 degree heat, I was with my daughter, we sat and sweat on the side of the road for hours. Cop felt so bad, he drove us and he sat behind the Alfa with his flashers on for almost 2 hours.

I considered one again in 2024 vs. an F87 M2. I have a couple other cars now, but I just cannot deal with crap like that in my life, its 2024 I don't have time for cars that just die with no notice. Dealer admitted they had no idea.

Beautiful cars, but you gotta know what you're getting yourself into.

I was dead set on buying one. Then my friend bought one and flat out talked me out of it. Endless problems, with dealers unable to resolve. Such a shame. It is a beautiful car.

And I had a Jaguar XFR at the time. So it's not like I was averse to non-German European cars -;p.s. The Jag was 100% trouble free.

[bri1042]

Reliability and build quality are always a gamble. When you buy a car, or anything really, you're gambling that you'll be on the right side of the thing's failure rate.

Back in the 90's, one of the big players in the PC market was Packard Bell. They had the worst 1st year hardware failure rate in the industry for many years, reaching as high as 38% of all PCs shipped in either 1996 or 1997 (or thereabouts...it's been a while). That's an awful gamble. PCs were expensive back then and if you bought one you had a near 4 in 10 chance that it would break before it was a year old.

But. You can find tons of folk who swear they were were a good PC brand because 62% of the folk who bought them that year had zero hardware issues. I know someone who was in high school when I was in the PC industry in the 90's whose parents bought him one, and all his friends had them. No one he knew had problems with them so his memory of them is that they were good computers when they absolutely were not.

Anecdotal evidence of a product's reliability is rarely accurate. With cars, I don't ever feel that we have as much data on car reliability as we did on PC reliability back when Packard Bell and Compaq ruled the world.

That being said, sometimes there are just too many anecdotes about a car and it becomes way too difficult to trust that your money is well-spent on it.

[blinkme323]

Originally Posted by bri1042

Reliability and build quality are always a gamble. When you buy a car, or anything really, you're gambling that you'll be on the right side of the thing's failure rate.

Back in the 90's, one of the big players in the PC market was Packard Bell. They had the worst 1st year hardware failure rate in the industry for many years, reaching as high as 38% of all PCs shipped in either 1996 or 1997 (or thereabouts...it's been a while). That's an awful gamble. PCs were expensive back then and if you bought one you had a near 4 in 10 chance that it would break before it was a year old.

But. You can find tons of folk who swear they were were a good PC brand because 62% of the folk who bought them that year had zero hardware issues. I know someone who was in high school when I was in the PC industry in the 90's whose parents bought him one, and all his friends had them. No one he knew had problems with them so his memory of them is that they were good computers when they absolutely were not.

Anecdotal evidence of a product's reliability is rarely accurate. With cars, I don't ever feel that we have as much data on car reliability as we did on PC reliability back when Packard Bell and Compaq ruled the world.

That being said, sometimes there are just too many anecdotes about a car and it becomes way too difficult to trust that your money is well-spent on it.

I get what you’re saying to a degree but Packard Bell wasn’t really doing anything novel or new back then in the computing space. The only reason to buy one was cost.

At least with the Alfa, you’re getting a VERY novel, Ferrari derived engine, almost unparalleled dynamics, etc. these are all objective. It’s just depends if you want to deal with the reliability aspects.

[bri1042]

Originally Posted by blinkme323

I get what you’re saying to a degree but Packard Bell wasn’t really doing anything novel or new back then in the computing space. The only reason to buy one was cost.

At least with the Alfa, you’re getting a VERY novel, Ferrari derived engine, almost unparalleled dynamics, etc. these are all objective. It’s just depends if you want to deal with the reliability aspects.

Cost was a big deal when a crap PC cost $2000. The push to produce PCs that cost $1000 or less killed Micron PC and several others.

Plus, the point was more about individual ownership experiences that folk push as evidence of an item's reliability, lack thereof, or other attributes. With most "unreliable" items, the majority of owners do not experience the bad side of the reliability game. I'm sure there are some unreliable manufactured things were the majority did, though solid data is often lacking.

[tjlazer]

Originally Posted by HeelToeShift

This information is simply not correct. Alfa have actually been a very reliable brand. The Quads especially. In the research I did, most of the people who owned Alfas, and Quads, were also owners of Porsche, Ferrari, Ms, RS', AMGs, and most of them said they were as reliable or more so than any of the other brands. I also saw many owners with 50-100K miles on Giulias that have been out in EU for some time say the same. The people I know who have owned Quads in the US have had no problems, especially after 2018. On top of that, they have held their value quite well.

My company is Italian and offers the range of Alfas as a company car option along with BMW etc. Typically my Italian colleagues opt for a fiat or Alfa and most of those Alfa owners has a story of some issue - whether the guilia, stelio and especially the tonale which by all accounts is a disaster. Several have been rejected as unsafe or utterly unreliable. I live in Europe but I seriously doubt the QC is better in the US. The electrics are a joke, the issues usually serious and the after
-service is really not good enough. Knowing what I do about issues with so many brand new vehicles I would never own one, even if the QF is still beautiful to look at (and even that they undermined by using the same look on the véloce editions).