156 SELESPEED Gearbox Problems
Nigel Taylor
I have had my 156 for 9 months and have had nothing but problems with the
selespeed.
Firstly, the buttons sometimes take 4 or 5 pushes before they work.
Then, when slowing down it goes into neutral between 3rd and 2nd gear.
I have taken it back for this problem on 14 occasions!
My alfa dealer cannot find out why this is happening.
Now I have no second gear at all!
When accelerating, the car will only change from 1st to 3rd, and then after
around a 4 second delay.
Imagine trying to drive this!
Anyone got any suggestions on how I solve this?
Thanks
Nigel T
HS
brought out a Selespeed software upgrade about a month ago which your Alfa
dealer will be able to perform - the Alfa bulletin describes the symptoms
you refer to as well as the car stalling when coming to a stop ... I had the
upgrade applied about 2 weeks ago - no problems whatsoever since ...
Good luck.
"Nigel Taylor" <ni...@marcus.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1010777938.5763.0...@news.demon.co.uk...
HS
how they perform after the software upgrade ...
"Nigel Taylor" <ni...@marcus.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1010777938.5763.0...@news.demon.co.uk...
canard
> I have had my 156 for 9 months and have had nothing but problems with the
> selespeed.
>
> Firstly, the buttons sometimes take 4 or 5 pushes before they work.
>
> Then, when slowing down it goes into neutral between 3rd and 2nd gear.
>
> I have taken it back for this problem on 14 occasions!
>
> My alfa dealer cannot find out why this is happening.
>
> Now I have no second gear at all!
>
> When accelerating, the car will only change from 1st to 3rd, and then after
> around a 4 second delay.
>
How many other people sat reading this with their blood temperature
rising to boiling point? We are too kind to dealers and let them get
away with murder (on our cars) just because they appear to be 'nice'
people who are 'doing their best'.
Probably very few technicians outside of the factory understand how
the software for Selespeed or the M1.1.5 ECU works. That is the
DEALERS problem.
The intermittent push-buttons on Nigels car are the DEALERS problem.
The false neutral between gears is the DEALERS problem.
The vanished 2nd gear is the DEALERS problem.
The problem is that for Nigel, because his dealer is incompetent (lack
of training from Alfa?), those problems are now his to solve.
A lot of apparently-complex faults (in any ECU-driven equipment)in the
end turn out to be nothing more than a single sensor at fault, or
incorrect set-up.
Maybe in this case it would pay you to travel to a known reputable
dealer - a dealer comfortable with the micro-circuit complexity these
cars employ.
Then perhaps a visit to a solicitor (oh, gawd!, careful choice needed
here) to recuperate your losses.
Sorry for the non-technical (useless?) answer, just needed to get this
off my chest!
AndyM
David C
I also suggest you look for another Alfa Main Dealer.
The problems you describe also lean towards a leaking/faulty Selespeed
Actuator.
Have you checked the Selespeed oil level?
If is loosing any there is a problem.
The procedure for checking the oil level is described in the Selespeed
manual, but basically:
Ignition on, but engine not running
remove vent pipe
Remove cap, clean dipstick and rest on top to get level.
The oil is very thin and very clear and isn't easy to see the level but you
should see if it is very low.
Providing you had the car from new it is still within the 12 month warranty
and the replacement actuator will cost you nothing.
I have just had mine replaced and the dealer told me it would have been
approx £1600 had I not purchased the additional 2nd/3rd year warranty (my
car is now 2 years old).
Good luck, and try to find a dealer with more Selespeed experience.
David C
"HS" <harpree...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a1p7aj$8q7$1...@knossos.btinternet.com...
HS
experienced by
Nigel and more.
Picture this ... while driving along, after the car had stood parked
overnight or for an extended
period, and stopping at the FIRST junction the engine would cut out with the
gearbox warning
light would blink ... basically, it appeared that the revs fell so low that
the car turned itself off ...
I also had the gearbox jumping straight from 2nd to 4th gear and many other
interesting features ...
Nigel, the latest Selespeed software upgrade will cure the problems you're
experiencing ... try it
before anything else ...
"David C" <da...@cannard.nospam.org> wrote in message
news:a1pao4$epn$1...@knossos.btinternet.com...
HS
I was about to join the M4 doing 50mph in 3rd, the car suddenly went into
NEUTRAL - couldn't believe it ...
Consider what would happen if the car went into N at about 70/80mph - the
engine would get a nice roasting ...
There should be a sanity warning attached to the Selespeed gearbox (or,
indeed, any Alfa) ...
Furthermore, it does not appear that Alfa have fixed all of the
problems/quirks with the Selespeed in the 147 ...
"David C" <da...@cannard.nospam.org> wrote in message
news:a1pao4$epn$1...@knossos.btinternet.com...
Ivan
"canard" <and...@alm.aviators.net> wrote in message
news:c8f9d6f7.02011...@posting.google.com...
> "Nigel Taylor" <ni...@marcus.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<1010777938.5763.0...@news.demon.co.uk>...
>
>
> The false neutral between gears is the DEALERS problem.
>
> The vanished 2nd gear is the DEALERS problem.
>
> The problem is that for Nigel, because his dealer is incompetent (lack
> of training from Alfa?), those problems are now his to solve.
>
I just spent the last 4 months back and from my Dealer to resolve a "no 4th
gear problem" which turned out to be a firmware issue.
Unfortunately the support that the Dealers get from Alfa is somewhat
lacking!
I do feel sorry for the Dealers when they are obviously faced with a design
problem and have to provide some kind of service to their customers.
Unfortunately this makes the Dealers seem as though they are somewhat
incompetent! I don't think it is a training issue.
Only around 10 per cent of 156's are Selespeeds, so that it is possible that
some Dealers rarely if ever get any exposure to the faults with them.
Coming from a service industry myself (nothing to do with the motor trade!),
we send guys on training courses that give all the theory of what should and
shouldn't happen but quite often we are faced with a problem which isn't
documented or "cannot happen" and we have to ride the storm with the
customer until the manufacturer resolves the issue. This can happen in
hours, days, weeks, or even months!
Back to Nigel's problem, which sounds like the firmware problem I had. What
could the Dealer do other than "humour" the guy or give him a courtesy car
until the problem was resolved. Short of the Dealer employing technicians
with Assembler programming skills he would just have to wait until Alfa came
up with the solution.
I'm not letting the Dealers off the hook but some problems are just beyond
their control. They should however, supply courtesy cars when problems are
not being resolved.
Just my 0.01$
Ivan.
156 Selespeed.
Dave Savage
"Nigel Taylor" <ni...@marcus.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1010777938.5763.0...@news.demon.co.uk...
Andy Hewitt
<snipped text>
> > When accelerating, the car will only change from 1st to 3rd, and then after
> > around a 4 second delay.
> >
> How many other people sat reading this with their blood temperature
> rising to boiling point? We are too kind to dealers and let them get
> away with murder (on our cars) just because they appear to be 'nice'
> people who are 'doing their best'.
>
> Probably very few technicians outside of the factory understand how
> the software for Selespeed or the M1.1.5 ECU works. That is the
> DEALERS problem.
>
> The intermittent push-buttons on Nigels car are the DEALERS problem.
>
> The false neutral between gears is the DEALERS problem.
>
> The vanished 2nd gear is the DEALERS problem.
So the fact that the Selespeed has been poorly designed from the start
is a dealers fault is it? Andy, you are talking out of your arse!
> The problem is that for Nigel, because his dealer is incompetent (lack
> of training from Alfa?), those problems are now his to solve.
That is irrelevant, Alfa UK don't know how they work either, and we did
send technicians on manufacturers training courses.
I'll give you an example of Alfa Romeos competence: They 'insist' that
all diagnostics under warranty must be accompanied by a printed 'hard'
copy from the Examiner tester. Except the printer hardly ever works.
Even on the training courses the printer failed during a demo, and it
was obvious this was a known problem.
Even obtaining technical assistance is a questionable action. More often
they would say, have you checked...... blah, blah and blah, which of
course you had, and that would be it.
Current workshop manuals are supplied on CD Rom, and they are awful, I
have spent manu hours trying to find a repair procedure, or a wiring
diagram, without great success.
> A lot of apparently-complex faults (in any ECU-driven equipment)in the
> end turn out to be nothing more than a single sensor at fault, or
> incorrect set-up.
Wrong. in nearly all the cases of electrical faults we have found it to
be a wiring or connection fault, quite often very hard to find. A very
common fault with Alfas is multiplug pins being pushed out during
assembly. Of course a multimeter test shows a good circuit.
> Maybe in this case it would pay you to travel to a known reputable
> dealer - a dealer comfortable with the micro-circuit complexity these
> cars employ.
You don;t need to know anything about the micro-circuitry - in fact I
doubt that any single dealer in the country would know how the internal
circuits of any ECU works. You don't need to.
In the case of the Selespeed faults there are a number of known issues,
all of which are down to crap design or build quality.
Firstly, the steering wheel buttons are nothing better than a pair of
games console switches, and very frequently fail.
There is of course the know software updates, and you can do no more as
a dealer than run the update as per the manufacturers instructions -
this will either work or won't. The only procedure we have found some
dealers to miss is the 'end of line' test which does the final
calibration on the system.
It is quite common for water to build up in the hydraulic fluid
reservoir - they made these with a pipe that protrudes into the N/S
wheel arch (clever eh?, and of course the dealer is so bad as to have
put it there eh?). This of course tends to knacker the entire internal
components of the hydraulics.
And finally, there is the hydraulic actuator itself, again a very well
known deficiancy in the system. These are bolted to what was the
selector shaft on the normal manual gearbox (in fact the box itself is
the same). Trouble is, they haven't reduced the force necessary to
change gear, and the leverage you have back at the gearstick isn't
avavilable to the actuator. There is so much force there that the drive
in the actuator that operates the selector rod is forced to move around
in the casing, and it eventually destroys the oil seal, which also
causes a loss of hydraulic pressure.
> Then perhaps a visit to a solicitor (oh, gawd!, careful choice needed
> here) to recuperate your losses.
>
> Sorry for the non-technical (useless?) answer, just needed to get this
> off my chest!
Yes, your answer was useless. Inevitably the legal responsibility is to
Alfa Romeo, The contractual details of buying a car are a little
different to usual. The dealer is merely an 'agent' working on behalf of
the manufacturer (in most cases at least). When you buy a car, the
dealer does not own that car, Alfa Romeo does. It does not belong to the
dealer until they pay Alfa Romeo for it, which is after you buy the car.
The only contract here is to supply you with a car. So in effect you are
buying your car from Alfa Romeo directly.
If you are taking your car to a dealer that did not sell your car to
you, then they have absolutely no legal obligation to even work on your
car. Their agreement is with Alfa Romeo to carry out warranty repairs on
their behalf. With UK dealers currently at a level of 93, and most
booking ahead in the order of weeks, they can easily choose whether or
not they work on your car - I can name dealers that turn away customers
if they did not buy the car from them.
This is not the dealers fault, it is Alfa Romeos. They have insufficient
dealers and poor backup for the volume of cars they have on the road.
They were initially taken by surprise when they launched the 156 that it
became so popular. Yet they managed to manufacturer enough to sell new
units, but after 4 years haven't managed to sort out their support for
them after they have been sold.
--
Andy Hewitt ** FAF#1, OSOS#5 - BMW K100RS 8v, Honda Concerto 16v
(RIP H100s, CB400N, CB750KZ, XJ600s) Windows free zone (Mac G3)
<http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ahewitt/index.htm> (last update 11/01)
Andy Hewitt
<snipped text>
> I'm not letting the Dealers off the hook but some problems are just beyond
> their control. They should however, supply courtesy cars when problems are
> not being resolved.
Which is another issue. Why the dealer?
Last year we had up top 23 vehicles in an off-road condition, if we
supplied a courtesy car to every one of those at our expense, that would
have been 23 vehicles we would have to find. If you take an everage car
at 10 grand a time, that's the best part of a quarter of a million quid
out there to help out customers because their cars hav a manufacturers
defect>
Alfa Romeo *will* supply a replacement car, or at least they will cover
the cost of hiring one (up to about 30 quid a day anyway), but this also
becomes an issue for the dealer in the form of warranty debts (I have
been a warranty administrator for 13 years, and the last three for
Alfa/Fiat).
Alfa expect the dealer to obtain an order number from them - although
they generally only authorise a hire car on parts that are back-ordered.
They then expect the dealer to hire the car for the customer at the
dealers expense, and then claim the charges back via the warranty
system.
Now I agree that this is the way it should be done, keep the
inconvenience down etc. However, I foudn that many of these car hire
claims were a) very expensive, and b) took a very long while to recover.
I am talking about having a 1500ukp hire car claim that might take up to
6 months to get paid up. We could constantly have half a dozen of these
on the go - especially as many of their parts go back-order for months
at a time.
Now it doesn't really take much to work out that a dealer that bows to
these demands isn't going to be trading for long. In fact I'm a little
surprised that Alfa are trading at all.
Believe me, I can understand that a dealer may not want to offer any
assistance, I have been stitched up by Alfa many times over warranty
claims they decided they won't pay - 'dunno who gave that order number'
kind of thing.
FFS give the dealers a break, I am working at a company that has been
trading for 70 years, and was an Alfa/Foat dealer for 5, and believe me
we could not wait for the end of the franchise to come. Evene as an
independent now we are doing a lot better, we have lower lead up times,
and we issue our own warranty policy to over-rise the manufacturers. We
even have lease companies offering to pay us to carry out work that
should be covered by warranty - even recalls - because we can do it in
three days instead of 5 weeks.
Ivan
"Andy Hewitt" <hairy...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:1f5wm56.1h7v0nxb05oigN%
>
> Last year we had up top 23 vehicles in an off-road condition, if we
> supplied a courtesy car to every one of those at our expense, that would
> have been 23 vehicles we would have to find. If you take an everage car
> at 10 grand a time, that's the best part of a quarter of a million quid
> out there to help out customers because their cars hav a manufacturers
> defect>
>
> Alfa Romeo *will* supply a replacement car, or at least they will cover
> the cost of hiring one (up to about 30 quid a day anyway), but this also
> becomes an issue for the dealer in the form of warranty debts (I have
> been a warranty administrator for 13 years, and the last three for
> Alfa/Fiat).
>
> Alfa expect the dealer to obtain an order number from them - although
> they generally only authorise a hire car on parts that are back-ordered.
> They then expect the dealer to hire the car for the customer at the
> dealers expense, and then claim the charges back via the warranty
> system.
>
This above is what I think the dealers should sort out and is the dealer
responsibility. Easier said than done I suppose!
I never asked for a courtesy car whilst mine was off the road and I was
never offered one, probably because of what you say.
I must be the dream customer of Alfa dealers !-))
Ivan.
156 Selespeed.
Andy Hewitt
<snipped text>
> > Alfa expect the dealer to obtain an order number from them - although
> > they generally only authorise a hire car on parts that are back-ordered.
> > They then expect the dealer to hire the car for the customer at the
> > dealers expense, and then claim the charges back via the warranty
> > system.
> >
>
> This above is what I think the dealers should sort out and is the dealer
> responsibility. Easier said than done I suppose!
Do you really think we didn't try? Do you really think we were happy
with that level of service?
> I never asked for a courtesy car whilst mine was off the road and I was
> never offered one, probably because of what you say.
You can certainly always ask for one, and when we have one, you will get
one - at least in our dealership you do. However, there is a limit to
the resources of a dealership, and if we were to offer a courtesy car to
every customer that came in, we may as well all shut our doors now. Even
now we have nearly 20 dead cars in our yard from Christmas.
> I must be the dream customer of Alfa dealers !-))
There are a couple out there :-)
canard
> canard <and...@alm.aviators.net> wrote:
>
> <snipped text>
> > > When accelerating, the car will only change from 1st to 3rd, and then after
> > > around a 4 second delay.
> > >
> > How many other people sat reading this with their blood temperature
> > rising to boiling point? We are too kind to dealers and let them get
> > away with murder (on our cars) just because they appear to be 'nice'
> > people who are 'doing their best'.
> >
> > Probably very few technicians outside of the factory understand how
> > the software for Selespeed or the M1.1.5 ECU works. That is the
> > DEALERS problem.
> >
> > The intermittent push-buttons on Nigels car are the DEALERS problem.
> >
> > The false neutral between gears is the DEALERS problem.
> >
> > The vanished 2nd gear is the DEALERS problem.
>
> So the fact that the Selespeed has been poorly designed from the start
> is a dealers fault is it? Andy, you are talking out of your arse!
>
PROBLEM, This was b4 I understood the dealer/manufacturer/customer
relationship you explain later on, sorry.
> > The problem is that for Nigel, because his dealer is incompetent (lack
> > of training from Alfa?), those problems are now his to solve.
>
> That is irrelevant, Alfa UK don't know how they work either, and we did
> send technicians on manufacturers training courses.
But surely Alfa UK has recieved sufficient training from the parent
company in order to provide customer service of a suitable standard?
Is there not an 'overseeing' body or society that ensures certain
standards of service and customer satisfaction are adhered to at
manufacturer level?
>
> I'll give you an example of Alfa Romeos competence: They 'insist' that
> all diagnostics under warranty must be accompanied by a printed 'hard'
> copy from the Examiner tester. Except the printer hardly ever works.
> Even on the training courses the printer failed during a demo, and it
> was obvious this was a known problem.
>
> Even obtaining technical assistance is a questionable action. More often
> they would say, have you checked...... blah, blah and blah, which of
> course you had, and that would be it.
>
> Current workshop manuals are supplied on CD Rom, and they are awful, I
> have spent manu hours trying to find a repair procedure, or a wiring
> diagram, without great success.
>
Sums it up, I guess.
> > A lot of apparently-complex faults (in any ECU-driven equipment)in the
> > end turn out to be nothing more than a single sensor at fault, or
> > incorrect set-up.
>
> Wrong. in nearly all the cases of electrical faults we have found it to
> be a wiring or connection fault, quite often very hard to find. A very
> common fault with Alfas is multiplug pins being pushed out during
> assembly. Of course a multimeter test shows a good circuit.
>
I was referring to micro-processor control in general, interesting to
see the particular faults afflicting Alfas also. Of course a
multiplug pin from a sensor not mating with the corresponding
connector would be seen as an open-circuit sensor on that pin, or a
lack of response to an actuator, by the ECU.
> > Maybe in this case it would pay you to travel to a known reputable
> > dealer - a dealer comfortable with the micro-circuit complexity these
> > cars employ.
>
> You don;t need to know anything about the micro-circuitry - in fact I
> doubt that any single dealer in the country would know how the internal
> circuits of any ECU works. You don't need to.
>
I should have emphasised the word 'complexity' and left out the word
micro-circuit, although I do think it is advantageous to have an
understanding of how the system uses the various inputs in order to
understand the outcome.
Not at all, look at the response it got!
Inevitably the legal responsibility is to
> Alfa Romeo, The contractual details of buying a car are a little
> different to usual. The dealer is merely an 'agent' working on behalf of
> the manufacturer (in most cases at least). When you buy a car, the
> dealer does not own that car, Alfa Romeo does. It does not belong to the
> dealer until they pay Alfa Romeo for it, which is after you buy the car.
> The only contract here is to supply you with a car. So in effect you are
> buying your car from Alfa Romeo directly.
>
So if the goods are not of merchantable quality when sold (gearbox
refuses to co-operate) there is no comeback on the manufactures agent?
> If you are taking your car to a dealer that did not sell your car to
> you, then they have absolutely no legal obligation to even work on your
> car. Their agreement is with Alfa Romeo to carry out warranty repairs on
> their behalf. With UK dealers currently at a level of 93, and most
> booking ahead in the order of weeks, they can easily choose whether or
> not they work on your car - I can name dealers that turn away customers
> if they did not buy the car from them.
>
> This is not the dealers fault, it is Alfa Romeos. They have insufficient
> dealers and poor backup for the volume of cars they have on the road.
> They were initially taken by surprise when they launched the 156 that it
> became so popular. Yet they managed to manufacturer enough to sell new
> units, but after 4 years haven't managed to sort out their support for
> them after they have been sold.
Thanks for this insight, although it leaves a lot of folks wondering
how on earth they will get the problems resolved on the 15k UK pound
car the salesman just persuaded them to buy.
Andy Hewitt
<snipped text>
> > > The vanished 2nd gear is the DEALERS problem.
> >
> > So the fact that the Selespeed has been poorly designed from the start
> > is a dealers fault is it? Andy, you are talking out of your arse!
> >
> I didn't say it was the dealers fault, I said it was the dealers
> PROBLEM, This was b4 I understood the dealer/manufacturer/customer
> relationship you explain later on, sorry.
OK, so we can argue over who's problem it is. It is the owners problem,
but the dealers responsibility to carry out a repair as requested by a
customer - working to the information provided by the manufacturer.
I apologise if I was a bit off, but your statements implied you were
blaming the dealer.
> > > The problem is that for Nigel, because his dealer is incompetent (lack
> > > of training from Alfa?), those problems are now his to solve.
> >
> > That is irrelevant, Alfa UK don't know how they work either, and we did
> > send technicians on manufacturers training courses.
>
> But surely Alfa UK has recieved sufficient training from the parent
> company in order to provide customer service of a suitable standard?
> Is there not an 'overseeing' body or society that ensures certain
> standards of service and customer satisfaction are adhered to at
> manufacturer level?
Nope, only a voluntary organisation - the RMIF, and that only applies to
the UK (of which my company is a member).
> > I'll give you an example of Alfa Romeos competence: They 'insist' that
> > all diagnostics under warranty must be accompanied by a printed 'hard'
> > copy from the Examiner tester. Except the printer hardly ever works.
> > Even on the training courses the printer failed during a demo, and it
> > was obvious this was a known problem.
> >
> > Even obtaining technical assistance is a questionable action. More often
> > they would say, have you checked...... blah, blah and blah, which of
> > course you had, and that would be it.
> >
> > Current workshop manuals are supplied on CD Rom, and they are awful, I
> > have spent manu hours trying to find a repair procedure, or a wiring
> > diagram, without great success.
> >
> Sums it up, I guess.
It is much the same for most franchises now, although I have to say that
the Alfa CD's are about the worst I have seen so far.
> > > A lot of apparently-complex faults (in any ECU-driven equipment)in the
> > > end turn out to be nothing more than a single sensor at fault, or
> > > incorrect set-up.
> >
> > Wrong. in nearly all the cases of electrical faults we have found it to
> > be a wiring or connection fault, quite often very hard to find. A very
> > common fault with Alfas is multiplug pins being pushed out during
> > assembly. Of course a multimeter test shows a good circuit.
> >
> I was referring to micro-processor control in general, interesting to
> see the particular faults afflicting Alfas also. Of course a
> multiplug pin from a sensor not mating with the corresponding
> connector would be seen as an open-circuit sensor on that pin, or a
> lack of response to an actuator, by the ECU.
Indeed, but you wouldn't need to know the internal working of the ECU.
In fact not many maufacturers will disclose that information - I worked
for Nissan too, and they show an empty box to represent an ECU too.
> > > Maybe in this case it would pay you to travel to a known reputable
> > > dealer - a dealer comfortable with the micro-circuit complexity these
> > > cars employ.
> >
> > You don;t need to know anything about the micro-circuitry - in fact I
> > doubt that any single dealer in the country would know how the internal
> > circuits of any ECU works. You don't need to.
> >
> I should have emphasised the word 'complexity' and left out the word
> micro-circuit, although I do think it is advantageous to have an
> understanding of how the system uses the various inputs in order to
> understand the outcome.
Indeed, and believe me, we are only too aware of the complexity of the
current systems.
<snipped text>
> > Yes, your answer was useless.
>
> Not at all, look at the response it got!
Fair enough :-)
> Inevitably the legal responsibility is to
> > Alfa Romeo, The contractual details of buying a car are a little
> > different to usual. The dealer is merely an 'agent' working on behalf of
> > the manufacturer (in most cases at least). When you buy a car, the
> > dealer does not own that car, Alfa Romeo does. It does not belong to the
> > dealer until they pay Alfa Romeo for it, which is after you buy the car.
> > The only contract here is to supply you with a car. So in effect you are
> > buying your car from Alfa Romeo directly.
> >
> So if the goods are not of merchantable quality when sold (gearbox
> refuses to co-operate) there is no comeback on the manufactures agent?
Not in this case. In fact as the law stands, the agent is only
accountable for defective goods if they cannot provide the identity of
the supplier.
I have recently become a victim of this myself with some faulty computer
peripherals, and I believe this is becoming very widespread now. But in
essence the dealer would not handle the repair of faulty goods, I had to
go to the manufacturer directly.
> > If you are taking your car to a dealer that did not sell your car to
> > you, then they have absolutely no legal obligation to even work on your
> > car. Their agreement is with Alfa Romeo to carry out warranty repairs on
> > their behalf. With UK dealers currently at a level of 93, and most
> > booking ahead in the order of weeks, they can easily choose whether or
> > not they work on your car - I can name dealers that turn away customers
> > if they did not buy the car from them.
> >
> > This is not the dealers fault, it is Alfa Romeos. They have insufficient
> > dealers and poor backup for the volume of cars they have on the road.
> > They were initially taken by surprise when they launched the 156 that it
> > became so popular. Yet they managed to manufacturer enough to sell new
> > units, but after 4 years haven't managed to sort out their support for
> > them after they have been sold.
>
> Thanks for this insight, although it leaves a lot of folks wondering
> how on earth they will get the problems resolved on the 15k UK pound
> car the salesman just persuaded them to buy.
I agree, it's apalling. I also deal with a lot of fleet companies, and
they are beginning to remove Alfa from their purchasing lists. It is a
real shame, because there is no doubt that the 156 is the best car in
its class, but without the support........ you get the rest.
Cheers
Dave Savage
This is the bit that gets me - I drive a '98 156 2.0 (love it) and wanted to
get a 2.4 diesel as a company car (I do loads of miles). Nope - they won't
let me, because of the grief they had with Alfa UK when they did allow
Alfa's on the list. Great shame, 'cos I work for a (very) large IT company,
and loads of people would get Alfa's if they could.
So what do I do ? Well, I drive a diesel Vectra all week (very boring but
economical) and have fun, fun, fun at the weekends with the 156 !!!
Dave S 156 2.0 SP2 :>))
"Andy Hewitt" <hairy...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:1f5x8oc.1nbylt71741iunN%hairy...@ntlworld.com...
snip, snip....
Andy Hewitt
> Aha !
>
> This is the bit that gets me - I drive a '98 156 2.0 (love it) and wanted to
> get a 2.4 diesel as a company car (I do loads of miles). Nope - they won't
> let me, because of the grief they had with Alfa UK when they did allow
> Alfa's on the list. Great shame, 'cos I work for a (very) large IT company,
> and loads of people would get Alfa's if they could.
I hear the same story so often now. It's a shame really because Alfa are
a vitim of their own success in recent years, but they seem to be doing
nothing about it, and will probably be the cause of their downfall as a
popular brand.
> So what do I do ? Well, I drive a diesel Vectra all week (very boring but
> economical) and have fun, fun, fun at the weekends with the 156 !!!
Again, what a lot of people are doing.
Harp
reasons, one of which is lack of support/training/etc. from HQ - so why
don't the dealers get together and relay this fact to Alfa HQ - "improve the
quality of the CD's", "improve the training", otherwise your sales have/are
gonna suffer etc.
You're talking as if Alfa dealers are the victims in this and as if you do
not have any say in the matter - you have a lot of power/clout in numbers to
change things ...
My experience of a number of Alfa dealers is that they employ incompetent
staff who have not got an ounce of common sense amongst them ...
"Andy Hewitt" <hairy...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:1f5x8oc.1nbylt71741iunN%hairy...@ntlworld.com...
Andy Hewitt
> Ok, the dealers have difficulties servicing the cars for a number of
> reasons, one of which is lack of support/training/etc. from HQ - so why
> don't the dealers get together and relay this fact to Alfa HQ - "improve the
> quality of the CD's", "improve the training", otherwise your sales have/are
> gonna suffer etc.
Indeed. However, as I said before, we are no longer an authorised main
dealer anymore, and are only too happy about it. We are doing just as
well though as far as sales and servicing goes - certainly better on the
aftersales side.
> You're talking as if Alfa dealers are the victims in this and as if you do
> not have any say in the matter - you have a lot of power/clout in numbers to
> change things ...
No, they don't. There are only a few Alfa dealers in the UK now, and the
Fiat group seem to be very happy to terminate a dealer at any time, and
pick another. Except that is even becoming a big mistake now, as they
are having to actually advertise in motoring magazines for companies to
take on the franchise.
They even did it in one journal right opposite a page that stated that
Alfa were the worst company for warranty support and dealer backup.
> My experience of a number of Alfa dealers is that they employ incompetent
> staff who have not got an ounce of common sense amongst them ...
I think you misunderstand. Certainly we have made mistakes, and we can't
know everything, but it is very easy to become very pissed off with
dealing with such shitty backup. We have had very much the same staff in
our business for many years - our shortest serving technician is 6 years
- I have worked there for 16 out of the last 22 years.
We have sent all of our technicians on all the required training courses
- of course they don't all attend all of them, you have to select
techicians to attend them in rotation, or according to skill.
Until the advent of the Alfa/Fiat franchise at our dealership we were a
Honda dealership, and were one of the best in the country, yet they
still terminated us for daft marketing reasons. We took on Alfa/Fiat
with the same staff we had, and suffered miserably at the hands of them,
we never had so many complaints, and yet we were doing nothing
different.
We analysed all of those complaints, and dealt with as best we could,
but I can honestly say that every single complaint relates back to
product quality, rather than dealer ability.
As I have said before, if we had operated to a standard that pleased
every customer with Alfas and Fiats, we would have had to do so at great
expense to the dealership, and we would not still be trading now. You
have to realise that the dealer makes very little out of selling a new
car, in fact in most cases now, it is no profit at all at the point of
sale.
We have to make up our profits on aftersales and used car sales, the
manufacturer makes most of the profit of selling a new car. We are also
very limited in what we can claim under warranty, we cannot claim the
hours we have to spend on an Alfa trying to locate a fault - and without
making anything in the first place, why should we? Every warranty job we
did was taking away potential profit from paying jobs.
Please remember that garages are here as a business, and not a public
service, we have to make a profit to survive, the same as any other
business. We work on behalf of the manufacturer, and we can only work to
the support they give us, both technically, and financially.
<snipped text>
Nigel Taylor
My dealer has done everything they can to help, including courtesy cars at
very short notice.
In fact I now have my own mechanic, who will call me to discuss the
problems, and what they are trying to do.
The actuator has been replaced, and now the control unit has also been
replaced. I have had software updates and five resets of the selespeed
system.
But the bottom line is that the dealer has no idea of what is going wrong.
Alfa UK have issued me with a complaint number, but are just paying lip
service to me.
My dealer is Ryauto in Stourbridge, West Midlands, but I must stress that
they have been good to me.
However, my disappointment is that I waited for years to own an Alfa, and
had a lot of problems persuading my boss to buy me one. Now this!
I feel the only solution is to sell the car, and go back to a "sensible"
alternative.
Thanks for all the help and comments.
Nigel T
"Dave Savage" <alf...@passione.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:a1pgut$c2k$1...@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk...
Hans de Heer
"HS" <harpree...@hotmail.com> schreef in bericht
news:a1pg17$nsj$1...@knossos.btinternet.com...
> Picture this ... while driving along, after the car had stood parked
> overnight or for an extended
> period, and stopping at the FIRST junction the engine would cut out with
the
> gearbox warning
> light would blink ... basically, it appeared that the revs fell so low
that
> the car turned itself off ...
Oh man, tell me about it... been there too. :(
Picture me in my stalled Selespeed, around the corner of my house, happy
neighbors passing in their beamers and japanese vehicles... pretty
embarassing!!!
Had no problems since the upgrade tho.. knock on wood!!
Regards, Hans
http://drive.to/gbregister
Alfa Romeo 156 Selespeed - 1999
Alfa Romeo GT 1300 Junior - 1968
Harp
there aren't any other MAJOR quirks ...
"Hans de Heer" <hans_d...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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zwge...@gmail.com
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