Hello

[Quattroporte]

Buongionro!

I recently brought a 2004 Alfa Romeo 156 TI. It had been over maintained by its previous owners despite only having 30, 000 kilometers on the clock and the dealer also offered a 3 month warranty. I had always wanted an Alfa Romeo and this seemed like the perfect example.



The brands appeal for me stemmed from the popular belief that you can not be a petrosexual until you've owned an Alfa Romeo. I also no doubt inherited my love for Alfa Romeo from my father who previously owned a 164 and 166.

I thought it would be a great idea to become part of this community as we Alfa drivers are a unique bunch.

I look forward to speaking with you all and sharing many stories of the experience Alfa ownership.

Cheers!

[colcol]

Welcome Quattroporte, very famous name that, a few years ago a team of Alfa Romeo's that were 4 door, took on the 6 hour race at Winton and won!, welcome to the forum, great car with nice seats, join your local chapter and become involved with like minded car fanatics, as Clarkson said, you cannot call yourself a petrol head until you have owned an Alfa Romeo.
Keep an eye out on the oil level as direct injection always uses a bit of oil and the oil to use is 10-60 fully synthetic racing oil of your favourite brand of oil.
The cambelts in these need doing every 3 years or 50,000klms or whatever comes first.
And keep an eye on that black plastic rigid water pipe at the front of the cylinder head, as they are prone to leaking around the o ring where it seals on the cylinder head.
Happy motoring and i hope you enjoy your Alfa Romeo ownership, Colin.

[Quattroporte]

Hi Colin

Thanks for the welcome!

I had a couple of queries which I'd appreciate someone shining some light on.

Every so often I will get an error message appear on the display. Since buying the car I have had "UDC System Failure", "ABS System Failure" and "Motor Control System Failure" all appear, but they have all disappeared after a few seconds or so and haven't seemed to affect the car in any way.

When we took it back to the dealership (Titan Ford in Brookevale) to have a relay cable replaced, we mentioned that these errors were coming up, and we'd like them to look into it. When we picked up the car a week later, they said that they had reset the computer system and this should have resolved these issues.

Clearly that hasn't been the case at all. The warranty runs out in approximately 5 weeks and I would like to have anything that might need to be replaced to be replaced by then.

We've had the car inspected by Alfa Specialists here in Sydney and the report came back with a few oil leaks, the dealership forgot to put a washer on the new relay cable and that there was a slight shudder in the ride due to a dented wheel. There were no electrical issues.

Today I was driving and as I pulled away from the lights the car became a bit jerky, before "Motor Control System Failure" popped up on the screen again, but this time it didn't go away. I turned the car on and off at the next red and all was well again.

I've read and been told by a former 156 owner that this could potentially be caused by the lambda sensors? However, this owner, told me that when these issues disappeared in his car, the engine error light stayed on the dash. Mine does not do this at all.

I was wondering if anyone would be able to give me a better insight into what might be causing these issues, how to resolve it and roughly how much it would cost if we had it done specifically by Alfa people?

[Davidm1600]

I have just posted a reply on your other thread re this, hopefully it will help. 

From my experience re 156s so far (and I have had mine for 5 1/2 years), as Col mentioned the key things to be mindful of, apart from Lambda sensors is, always make sure that the belts and water pump etc are changed on/or just prior to the scheduled timeframe, every 50,000 km.  Also keep an eye on the water temp, as thermostats can and will fail (indication being your car is running really cool and I don't mean  how it looks.) If you don't replace this, you can damage the catalytic converter, and you don't want to do that as they are expensive $1400-2K !!

Upper and lower control arms over time will wear and have to be replaced as a full item, ditto front sway bar bushes can wear and will go squeaky.  As mentioned in my other comments, check out EB Spares for parts.  Ditto over time, the shocks will become soft.  I bought a set of 4 Bilsteins from EB for around $400, you couldn't do this in Aus.

The other thing is of course keep an eye on the oil level. They will use a little but it is no big deal if you keep on top of that.   

Apart from that really, I havn't had any other problems to be bothered by.  Your 156 looks great.

[colcol]

Sometimes the error messages can be caused by poor earth wires, some Alfa specialists add an extra earth wire, a bad battery can also cause error messages as well.
The thermostat problem for these Fiat based engines are legendary, i am on my 3rd thermostat, on my car, i have tried  3 different brands, Genuine, Behr and Facet and they all seem to have limited lifespans, they are not cheap, forget about $2 thermostats at Repco, these cost anywhere between $80-$160, but the cars runs better and is more economical on petrol, plus a better heater in winter, when faulty, it will take forever to warm up and sit on about 70c and take it on the freeway and the temperature will drop down to 50c, not good for engine wear.
There is an Alfa specialist who reccomends new Lambda sensors every 5-6 years or about 80,000klms, as they wear out and give the fuel injection computer false information, they say Beemer lambdas are replaced at the 60,000klms service to avoid such problems.
I was getting an occasional misfire and i got an engine warning light once when it misfired, mine has done 113,000klms, so i replaced them, and they were very dirty and can't have been doing a good job of 'sniffing' the oxygen content of the catalatic convertor, fingers crossed it hasn't misfired since, Colin.

[Quattroporte]

Thanks, Colin.

I had the battery checked only 2 days ago and it was absolutely fine. My car only has 30, 000 kilometres on the clock and was built in August 2004 and on the road in 2005. The engine has never misfired either.

Does this matter?

I called Brian Foley (an Alfa Romeo Specialist in Sydney) and spoke to one of their mechanics.

I explained to him the situation to him and the fact that yesterday and today the "Motor Control System Failure" errors appeared.

He told me that this could potentially be due to the fuel in the car. I told him that I've only ever filled it up with premium 98 unleded fuel. Despite this he told me that the sensors could of picked up on some dirt in the fuel and that could of caused the errors. I was advised to run the tank nearly to empty before filling up again from a different station. If this doesn't get rid of the errors then to take it into them for a diagnostics test.

Keeping in mind they had already done a full car check over a picked up nothing, I'm hoping this will cure the problem. However, does the fact that they had looked over it, really mean it couldn't be something more serious?

He told me that at the time they looked over the car there was no errors because the car had been reset? This happens when I turn the car on and off.

The sensors can be replaced by the dealership worse comes to worse, but he said that the fact that the engine symbol doesn't stay on the dashboard, that it would suggest it isn't something serious.