Bluegoblin's Rental Car Review - Alfa Romeo 159
I have done a couple reviews of cars you just can't get here over the last couple years (Fiat Stilo, Mercedes C220CDI), so I thought I would continue with the Alfa Romeo 159.
Alfa Romeo's have always had a mystique about them to me, which is why I went well out of my way to get my hands on one of the new 159's. From the first time that I was given a ride in a Rosso Red 1971 Alfa 2000GTV to the tail happy action of a 1987 Milano I drove once, I have always loved the look of and best of all, the sounds from Alfa Romeos. Even the otherwise bland 164 that signalled the last of the North Amercian crop had one of the most beautiful looking engines I have ever seen. I am well aware of the historical issues and problems along the way with Alfas too, but there you have it. My preconceptions going in to the car.
The Exterior: A picture is worth a thousand words, so I will leave it pretty much down to this: photo google the 159 and you will find a bunch of gorgeous pics of it. Its reputation for classy design and stylishness is well deserved. The front end in particular is one of the most remarkable and, I believe most classic designs out there right now. I think that in 30 years, people will still look at the front of a 159 and say 'that's still pretty'.
The first impression for me was that it is considerably smaller than what I expected. I had mentally prepared myself for something BMW 3 series in apparent size (they are about the same dimensions), but it strikes the eye as slighter and more taut than the 3.
The Interior: The first thing that struck my eyes was the seats: Dark Charcoal, very high quality leather, and with a looking of having been tailored. Despite my poor rental car already having amassed 40,000 km, the interior still smelled of new leather, which was nice. The seats, it turns out are quite firm and incredibly supportive, with moderate but effective side bolstering. Over a 600 km day of driving, these turned out to be probably the finest automotive seats I have ever experienced. If nothing else, the car is worth it for the seats alone. Your ass experience my differ, of course.
The gauges were well set up with a large tach, speedo and multifunction screen between them straight ahead, and 3 small pods off to the left with fuel, oil pressure and boost guage. These side gauges were asthetically pleasing, but fairly useless. The rest of the dash is an aluminum faschia on black grippy plastic that looks very nice and feels good too.
Pedals are well spaced and the interior materials are of uniformly high quality in look and touch; roughly on par with the Audi A3/4 or BMW 3 series; damped grab handles and soft touch plastics abound. There is one glaring exception to this rule though; the shifter knob is a piece of crap that seems to have either been lifted from a Fiat Panda or a Kinder Suprise egg. It is leather and aluminum look, but feels rattley and incredibly out of place in this car.
The key fob is similar to a VW/Audi's but there is no key. You stuff the fob into the dash and then hit the red engine start/stop button. It is a direct starter button rather than a computerised 'signal to start the engine' -if that makes sense- which gives it a nice connected-to-the-engine feel a bit like a motorcycle or older airplane.
There is a large (6.5") Sat Nav/Stereo screen in the centre of the dash between the seats. The Sat Nav was partially intuitive, which was good, as I never was able to reprogram it to display in English. Once going though, the Sat Nav worked exceptionally well. The only real downside is the location of the screen - high marks for size, poor marks for having to look well down below to glance at it. This is not the sort you could get away with fiddling with while driving; not a good idea at the best of times but an invitation to disaster here. There is no touch screen - it is all dial and button controlled.
The car unfortunately fails the "can I sit behind myself test" Where I set the driver's seat for my liking and try to sit in the back behind the driver (I'm 6'2"). While I can physically squeeze in there, my legs are crushed against the seatback. When the seat is moved just a couple inches, a wealth of space opens up and the back becomes quite nice with lots of headroom (The front had a surplus of headroom as well - I expect someone up to about 6'7" or so would be just fine).
Driving: The car I had was equipped with the lesser of two diesel lumps that are available for the Alfa 159 - a 1.9L common rail turbo that is reputed to crank out 150 hp at 4000 rpm and
236 ft/lbs of torque at 2000. There is also a 200hp diesel and a range of petrols from 160 to 260 hp.
I hate to say it but I was really disappointed in the engine. It was very dieselly sounding and rather loud at idle, both from inside and outside, and never really felt like it had the claimed horsepower. It was in no way in similar league with the torquier but also 150hp Mercedes 2.2L for refinement or power. The 1.9 Alfa actually felt more along the lines of perhaps 110hp and 200 ft/lbs, if my backside dyno was working at all right. While I very much enjoy modern diesels for their economy and torque, they rarely display much in the way of 'character'. This one did so far less than any other I have driven, even 2000ish VW 90hp ones. When you pop the hood, the Alfa's motor at least looks great. Well, not the motor exactly, you can't see that, but there is a great big noise shield in red and silver that makes the motor look enormous and futuristic.
If I could have picked any of the engines to drive, it probably would have been the 2.2L petrol with 185 hp - the 4 would probably have left the nice chassis balance in better shape than the more powerful 6 and still allowed for a revvy, potentially much more fun drive.
Apart from the engine, the dynamics were probably the best of a front driver I have ever driven; excellent feedback through the thick leather wheel, impressive damping in the suspension without it feeling harsh, etc. The 225/50/17's gripped nicely and never tramlined on crummy sideroads. Class Act in the suspension and steering departments.
The shifter - despite the shabby knob - was another Class Act. It lacked mechanical feel as pretty much all front drive shifters do, but had a great gate action and short shift throw through the six forward gears. Top gear allowed for eady 2000 rpm crusing at 130 km/h. Fuel consumption seemed reasonable (I just didn't have it long enough to get a good read of it) - and a range of 800-1000 km per tank seemed within easy acheivement.
Wind noise was well contained until getting up in speed over the 140 mark, and never became intrusive.
How about the price? As equpped, it seems to come in around the 30,000 Euro mark. While $45,000CDN seems high, it is actually pretty much spot on in comparison to some other likely competition as cars are just cost that much more in Europe; An equivalently equipped VW Jetta runs about the same amount.
There has been on-and-off talk about Alfa making a comeback to North America in 2010 or so with the 159 being part of the lineup. If they can do that, keep the quality control solid, and keep the pricing in line with the Jetta, that would be fantastic. I could even see the possibility of the AWD 260 hp V6 making its way to my garage at some point. Dark red with saddle tan leather, please.
Anyways - long review, I know, but to any who made it this far, thanks for reading!
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Originally Posted by heavyfuel
