Alfa 156 - Engine failure after 5 months

Honest John Back Room » Legal matters
What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
View Threaded
Thu 19 May 2011 16:07
Alfa 156 - Engine failure after 5 months - harrumph

We bought an Alfa in December last year for £2000 and within a few hours it started to make a knocking sound. The dealer agreed to replace the variator. Within 2 weeks the gearbox started crunching into gear and a diagnosis from a specialist told us it was the synchromesh, £700 to repair (but not essential) which we couldn't afford and the dealer refused to help (which we accepted).

Since getting the car we have had the anti roll bars repaired, the wishbones & brushes and replaced all the brakes so a fair bit of money spent...

The car consumed lots of oil from the off (symptomatic of big end?) and also developed a tappitty noise (checked at a garage). Yesterday it began a horrendous knocking from the engine. An Alfa specialist has told us it's the bottom end, at a cost of £1570.

Do we have any rights?

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Thu 19 May 2011 16:50
Alfa 156 - Engine failure after 5 months - LucyBC

How old is the car? You have some potential rights under the Sale of Goods Act particularly up to six months after sale but the legislation is not blind to the age of the vehicle and what you paid for it.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Thu 19 May 2011 17:44
Alfa 156 - Engine failure after 5 months - harrumph

How old is the car? You have some potential rights under the Sale of Goods Act particularly up to six months after sale but the legislation is not blind to the age of the vehicle and what you paid for it.

The car is 2002 so is 9 years old :/ To be honest I don't expect to be able to do much about it, I just want to see if there's any options available to us before scrapping it. I do feel the vehicle was sold to us in an unfit state but I'm well aware that proving it after 5 months would be almost impossible!

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Thu 19 May 2011 20:03
Alfa 156 - Engine failure after 5 months - injection doc

Variators are very common but so is big end failure. If these engines are allowed to run below the minimum mark on the dip stick just once the big ends can fail at any time. usually the big end fail within 20-30 miles of an oil and filter change if they have covered more than 78000 miles.

Big end failure is sudden on these and cannot be predicted other than knowledge of the bottom end being so weak

http://www.alfisti.net/alfa-forum/technic-talk/17186-big-end-bearing-failure.html

In my garage years I experinced numerous alfa's having big end failure, so bad infact that in the end we refused to get involved with servicing them!

Reply | Report as offensive | Link

Looking for a garage you can trust? Honest John's Good Garage Guide has thousands of reader recommended garages, plus how-to guides and tips on servicing.

The Good Garage Guide