Alfa Romeo at Roberts Aerospace and Automotive

We mainly specialise in Alfa Romeos from the 1990s "FIAT Era" - this means 145, 146, 147, 155, 156, 164, 166, Spider, GT, and GTV. And now, with a major investment in the very latest Examiner Smart diagnostic equipment we can now service Alfa Romeos up until the present day, including the Brera, 159, New Spider etc.

We know that the older ones are classic, but the 156 (and derivatives) are awesome!

Having owned - from new - one of the first 156s to come into the country back in 1998, we really know these cars' little foibles and more importantly, know what these cars should feel like to drive when they are new.

When these cars were marketed originally, they were sold as the "Ferrari driving experience" for the family man. Unfortunately, the "Ferrari experience" also extends to maintenance and reliability.

Even when new these cars required a lot of maintenance, and could have done with rather a lot more reliability! Nowadays, they really need looking after properly or you'll be left looking silly with all your mates telling you that you really should have bought something nice and sensible like a BMW 3-Series, when the whole point of buying an Alfa 156 is that it isn't a BMW 3-Series!

So when you next explain that the reason you've turned up at the pub in your wife (or husband's, or partner's, or pet hamster's) Honda is that your Alfa has suffered an "Electrical problem", make sure that you don't mean that a conrod has punched a hole in your CD player!

Modern Alfas need a lot of specialist tools to maintain - from changing a cambelt (which is almost excusable), to changing the oil (which isn't). Taking your fragile and very specialised car to your local "we specialise in all makes" garage won't do it any good at all. If they'll actually take it on.

We have the very latest Fiat/Alfa Romeo Examiner Smart computer diagnostic system with all the various accessories as supplied to official Alfa Romeo and Fiat franchised dealers, so can perform all forms of diagnostics on these cars including resetting airbag lights, debugging and adjusting Selespeed gearboxes, and so on on cars up to the present day.

Having the right diagnostic equipment for these cars is vital, especially if there is something wrong as it can pinpoint the problem quickly and accurately avoiding the expensive "replace everything until it's fixed" philosophy of the non-specialist garage. If considering using another independent specialist, ask them if they have this equipment. If they don't, then politely walk away...

Our Top Tips for Alfas:

1. Keep the oil topped up. If it falls below the "minimum" mark on the dipstick, you're in trouble. If the "low pressure" light on the dashboard lights up, you've already wrecked the engine. Some Alfa 155s had an oil level sensor that warned you to fill it up. One of the stupidest things ever was not having the same sensor on the 156. Alfa 147s have an oil level sensor, but it often doesn't work that well...
    
2. Change the oil. Use Selenia semi-synthetic oil, and change it every 12,000 miles. Or sooner if you want your engine to last. It's a lot of hassle to change the oil - the undertray has to be removed, and on a V6 you have to move part of the power steering or aircon system out of the way to get at the oil filter, so many previous owners don't bother, or change it very infrequently. This will destroy an Alfa engine. Some might recommend a fully synthetic oil, but this tends to drain away far too much leaving the top end of the engine starved of lubricant at start up. This is especially true of twin-spark cars fitted with cam variators. Semi synthetic oil has much better cling characteristics and will preserve your engine. That's why Alfa Romeo specify semi-synthetic, the engine was designed for it, and it was originally filled with it. Fully synthetic is the wrong oil for your car. Also, look at the specification of the oil - you'll need at least an API SJ spec oil. The 156 was designed for API SJ oil - look at the recommended lubricant sticker in your engine bay.
    
3. Change the cam belt every three years. Cam belts deteriorate with time, as well as mileage, so make sure you change them regularly. You really don't want to see what happens when they snap. You need a lot of special tools to change the cam belt, so if you're thinking of trying to do it yourself, good luck. Officially, Alfa say that you only need to replace the cam belt every 72K, so why do we say 36K? Well, if you look in the small print the official Alfa service schedule calls for the belt to be "inspected" after 36K. However, when they say "inspected" they mean the belt has the be removed, examined with a magnifying glass, a new belt fitted if there's any doubt, and then the cam timing and the belt tensioner need resetting. So, it's no harder, and no more expensive, to replace the belt every 36K. A few years ago, Alfa officially changed the recommended interval to 36K or 3 years and your dealer should have stuck a new page in your manual saying so. If he hasn't, then shame on him! Click on the pic to see what it should say...
    
4. Change the latest spec pulleys every 72,000 miles. These deteriorate with mileage, not time. Virtually all (pre-'05) TS cam belt pulleys were replaced by Alfa at about 36,000 miles with stronger ones that they reckon will last 72,000 miles.  If your cam belt tensioner pulley is black and not the new stronger white one, then stop your car and trailer it to us. It's going to wreck your engine any second now and it's a miracle that it's still in one piece! Even these later white ones have now been replaced with all steel.
    
5. Change the air filter. It's very awkward to change and most owners don't bother. On a 156 the bolts that hold it together seize up and as they are anchored in plastic will just strip. We have to cut through a lot of those bolts...
   
   
6. Keep an eye on your brakes, they wear out very quickly. Once the hardened outer 1mm thickness of disc has been worn through, the discs will wear very quickly leading to scoring, lipping, and warping. If you can feel a pronounced "lip" at the edge of the disc, then you're looking at needing new ones very soon. Due to the nature of the calipers, the inside of the discs - the bit you can't easily see - is always far worse than the outside that you can see. Rather unfortunately, if the pad wear indicator wire wears through, breaks, of just becomes disconnected, then the warning light will not come on - it's a "fail off" system. So, your pads can wear down to nothing, and it still won't tell you.
    
7. If your car has done 50K to 70K and the performance and fuel economy isn't what it was, then your Lambda sensor is probably wearing out or even failed completely. There's a lot of internet blah-blah about the MAF or the variator, but it's usually the Lambda. They are not designed to last more than 60K. On BMWs replacing the Lambda sensor is a service item at the 60K service, and is the same part. So why not on an Alfa? Who knows. Change it (or them on later cars) at 60K and you'll be surprised at the difference. We actually have an official Alfa Romeo dealer lambda sensor testing kit, which rather helpfully tells you what in your sensor has failed, but there's not a lot you can do about it other than replace the sensor.

Attending correctly to the above is not expensive, and a well serviced car will pay you back with improved reliability and increased value at resale time. In particular, the 72K service will typically add at least its cost to the value of the car as it very difficult to sell a car at around the 72K mark without having had this essential work carried out.

We offer fixed prices on the following common Alfa Romeo servicing tasks.

"Fiat Era" Alfa Romeo 145/146/147/156/166/Spider/GT/GTV

"GM Era" Alfa Romeo 159/Brera/Nuovo Spider.

Please note, that these extended servicing intervals are the official factory recommendations. Historically, the factory has been wildly optimistic and these are usually reduced in the light of experience. We would recommend annual servicing and more regular cambelt changes.

When called out to a customer site, there is the following flat-rate charge:

All prices are inclusive of parts, labour, applicable taxes and use genuine Alfa Romeo or original manufacturer parts and Selenia or Tutela fluids.

Please include your chassis number (VIN) in any correspondence (the "ZAR9xx000xxxxxxxx" number) if at all possible as we can look your car up on a database that will tell us what engine, trim, date of manufacture, and any other variations it might have and that'll save us asking lots of repetitive questions that you might not know the answer to anyway.

 Home