Faults:

Some small niggling problems like the rear washer becoming detached, but easy to fix.

Doors made horrible cracking noise on opening and closing, common problem on these cars.

Main problem was the clutch going at 60,000 miles. Made the mistake of taking it to a dealer so it was off the road for about 4-5 days and cost €650 in labour alone. Parts were only €200.

General Comments:

Great little car, the 1.4 engine gives enough power for what it is. The handling is nice and direct with lots of grip.

Its got more character then any other 5 door small family car I can think of.

Nice car to own just avoid main dealers for servicing and it should be just fine.

Faults:

Offside door stay problem.

General Comments:

Superb performance.

Outstanding Alfa looks. Is this one of the prettiest cars they have ever designed?

Mine is Maroon. What better colour?

Cabin comfortable and secure, but lacks class of 147 and 156.

I am getting heartily sick of every baseball capped owner of Volks GTI's or 1.2 Corsa's, with great big exhausts, trying to tailgate. Is it the badge that does it? I have seen most of them off with the outstanding mid range 5th to 3rd gear accelleration, but they still will not learn!!!

Faults:

Front passenger door fell off while it was still under warranty.

Keys need to be recoded on a regular basis.

General Comments:

This car is fast - but only if you are prepared to have it tuned to near racing car conditions on a regular basis.

It does not like to be driven slow. It feels like a dog yanking on a leash at 30 miles an hour.

Brilliant on long journeys. Seats seemed a little hard when first purchased, but the support comes into its own on long journeys.

Faults:

First problem was with the drivers seat, the height adjustment was faulty, it took 4 visits to a main dealer to rectify the problem.

Next was the air system, it would only blow hot, this took about 3 visits to the main dealer in Limerick to get fixed.

Rear window washer didn't work after about 5,000 miles.

15,000 mile car started missing, needed new connections and spark plugs (spark plug weren't covered under warranty (EURO 240.00)

35,000 lambda sensor in Cat needed replacing. Covered under warranty.

50,000 miles Throttle Body needed replacing, took 3 visits as the first replacement was faulty, my second visit the wrong throttle body was in the box... 3rd time lucky (Alfa mechanic told me that it's a fault with Alfa throttle bodies, they all go around 50,000 miles.

60,000 Engine seized, shredded timing belt, off the road for 1 month (warranty only covered 1 weeks car hire) new spark plugs needed (another Euro 240.00 as they are still not covered under warranty)

General Comments:

Although this is not the most reliable, the driving experience is great. You really need the 2.0 Ti. The car is too heavy for the 103 bhp 1.4 engine.

The car is due for a change shortly, as a company car driver, I'd take another one, as a private buyer, I'd stay well away.

Depreciation is really bad, its hardly worth a pint of larger with 70000 and 3 years on it.