Inlet camshaft variator very rattly, made it sound like a diesel!
All cambelt and balancer shaft belt bearings were shot at 58,000 miles.
I bought this car at a good price as the engine was rattling badly, especially at tickover. This turned out to be the inlet cam variator, but although it cost £95-00 as I was changing the camshaft and balancer shaft belts anyway it wasn't too much extra work to do. I was a bit horrified at how rough the cam and balancer shaft tensioner bearings were though (at 58,000 miles on a car where the original belt change interval was 72,000. Now changed to 36,000, that must have cost a lot of people a lot of money!). Advice? Change the belts every 36K regardless, it will be cheaper in the long run! To drive it is comfortable and though the seat felt hard at first after several hours driving I get no aches or stiffness. The performance seems poor until you really rev it, the 7,000 rpm redline is not there as a joke and the fifth gear performance from 90 mph onwards is really quite good. I put this down to aerodynamics as my Lancia Thema turbo is much quicker up this sort of speed, but definitely slower from there on. It corners amazingly well for a 5 seat "luxury" saloon. On mine everything electrical works, but I gather I might be lucky with this. The climate control is adequate, but necessary as there is a huge amount of wind noise with the windows open at over about 60. The fuel economy is brilliant for the size and performance, but general maintenance costs are likely to be high because a) parts are expensive b) it needs a lot of attention and c) some garages will be scared of it and price accordingly. No need, I am a garage owner and find it quite straightforward to work on.
Alfa Romeo 156 up there with a BMW 5, yea dream on, its not even near its direct competitor the BMW 3.
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