Joined
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152 Posts
Greetings everyone, first time poster long time reader. Hoping for some advice here.
I've been looking at cars now for about 6 months off an on and more seriously in the past month or so. Ive read every review, video etc out there about cars in this category and really came to the determination that the Alfa Giulia was the one for me. The other option was the Audi S3 but I couldn't spend that money on what is really a Volkswagen.
I really wanted a TI Sport loaded, black with red interior (wife's pick). Not a big fan of the black 5 hole rims on the volcano black, I think it would look better with the Y rims but no one orders those. I hate the look of the bright 5 hole.
This is a hard car to find. Well, I finally found one rather far from my location and with the deal that made it worth the drive 3.5 hours to Strongsville Ohio. Great people to work with and great pricing! Alas, I think the dealer wants to choke me as I had to walk away yesterday.
After second guessing myself for 2 weeks, I was finally set on picking up the car yesterday. I got out of work much later than I had hoped, rented a car and zoomed up to Strongsville, passing stopped cars in traffic on the shoulder, full of caffeine to fuel my spirited ride to pickup this car before they closed at 6. My ETA was 4pm , originally plan was 2, I arrived at 4:15! I planned on leasing 36 months then buying out the car if I really liked it but would most likely just pickup a new alfa at that point and finance it.
The Test Drive:
They seemed a bit confused that I wanted to test drive the car which threw me a bit, or maybe I took it that way and they actually didn't but I had an alarm go off right there. So I get in the car , drive it down 2 miles away into a park and pop it into manual going through 1-5 and some sharp bends. Fun...
Then I start to hear a clunk, which is getting louder and louder. As I brake I started to hear the clunk get louder and a grind. Not good. I take it back to the dealer, 5 mins later they said it was some road tar but to me it sound like an incorrectly mounted wheel (they swapped rims for me), or a loose brake caliper allowing the pads to flop around on a slightly warped rotor. BUT, sure enough it drove FINE after that.
We drove around a bit, then were heading back to the dealer, at the intersection prior I noticed a yellow message on my alert screen. The sales person told me I must have hit something, so we as we pulled in, we were pushing every button imaginable to clear the message. My focus was on hitting a button that would turn it off and back on, not reading the message then...another message popped up.
As I can recall, one stated Lane Departure Warning Failure - Service but probably not that verbiage exactly. The other said something about ECU or ? I just don't recall.
We turned the car off and like magic it disappeared upon power up. I took it for another ride and yet another warning. As I reached for my phone to take a pic, it went away.
The dash was dirty, the car has sat for four months, there were scuffs on the door, the center console and a small scratch inside the door. Nothing worth not taking a car over as I'll do all of that in the first week. But couple that with all the other issues I had to walk away. The dealer was not happy.
I texted my wife letting her know I wasn't going to take the car, she said look at the Quad and just get the Quad as that was what I've been drooling over. The dealer at this point already walked away from me angry at this point. They also didn't have a mechanic there at this point so they couldn't hook it up to read the codes and did not offer to call me today with an explanation. The dealer said "hey no worries, I'll turn this around and sell this tomorrow". Moments prior he promised that the car was up to date with all its shots (software flashes) but as there was obviously issues with warning messages, I was a bit surprised he wasn't going to look into those issues and get them resolved for the next customer. If they were then why wouldn't they just do it for me right then or today and then call me to tell me it was resolve? Of course, there's the off chance they were sick of me and didn't want to deal with me anymore
SO my question to the group is, was this worth walking away from? I'm not going to get this car with the same specs unless I want to drive to Texas from Pennsylvania! I'm actually now considering the Quad and the S4 now at this point if I'm going to spend big boy money but as this is my daily driver and my commute is 35 miles one way, I'm really kicking myself for passing on this car. I knew though that if I took this car I would be waiting for the next warning and having to take the car to the only dealer near me that I couldn't work out a deal with that will not give a rental if you don't buy the car from them. I'm too busy with work/life not to have a semi reliable car or at least a quick rental swap to get back on the road. Not to mention, the peer pressure of everyone I know saying WHY would you consider that car, and yet you still bought it and now you are taking it the shop a week after you bought it?!
Does anyone know how benign these messages are? I see a sizable number of 'anomalies' on these forums with errors and issues which would actually make me think twice about going on a long road trip with this car with my young kids in the back. That just shouldn't be for such a new car in 2018 but as this was to be my daily driver and weekend car for the family when we go places together from time to time except when we hit the mountains, I wasn't too worried and was ok with taking a car with some 'quirks'.
I've been looking at cars now for about 6 months off an on and more seriously in the past month or so. Ive read every review, video etc out there about cars in this category and really came to the determination that the Alfa Giulia was the one for me. The other option was the Audi S3 but I couldn't spend that money on what is really a Volkswagen.
I really wanted a TI Sport loaded, black with red interior (wife's pick). Not a big fan of the black 5 hole rims on the volcano black, I think it would look better with the Y rims but no one orders those. I hate the look of the bright 5 hole.
This is a hard car to find. Well, I finally found one rather far from my location and with the deal that made it worth the drive 3.5 hours to Strongsville Ohio. Great people to work with and great pricing! Alas, I think the dealer wants to choke me as I had to walk away yesterday.
After second guessing myself for 2 weeks, I was finally set on picking up the car yesterday. I got out of work much later than I had hoped, rented a car and zoomed up to Strongsville, passing stopped cars in traffic on the shoulder, full of caffeine to fuel my spirited ride to pickup this car before they closed at 6. My ETA was 4pm , originally plan was 2, I arrived at 4:15! I planned on leasing 36 months then buying out the car if I really liked it but would most likely just pickup a new alfa at that point and finance it.
The Test Drive:
They seemed a bit confused that I wanted to test drive the car which threw me a bit, or maybe I took it that way and they actually didn't but I had an alarm go off right there. So I get in the car , drive it down 2 miles away into a park and pop it into manual going through 1-5 and some sharp bends. Fun...
Then I start to hear a clunk, which is getting louder and louder. As I brake I started to hear the clunk get louder and a grind. Not good. I take it back to the dealer, 5 mins later they said it was some road tar but to me it sound like an incorrectly mounted wheel (they swapped rims for me), or a loose brake caliper allowing the pads to flop around on a slightly warped rotor. BUT, sure enough it drove FINE after that.
We drove around a bit, then were heading back to the dealer, at the intersection prior I noticed a yellow message on my alert screen. The sales person told me I must have hit something, so we as we pulled in, we were pushing every button imaginable to clear the message. My focus was on hitting a button that would turn it off and back on, not reading the message then...another message popped up.
As I can recall, one stated Lane Departure Warning Failure - Service but probably not that verbiage exactly. The other said something about ECU or ? I just don't recall.
We turned the car off and like magic it disappeared upon power up. I took it for another ride and yet another warning. As I reached for my phone to take a pic, it went away.
The dash was dirty, the car has sat for four months, there were scuffs on the door, the center console and a small scratch inside the door. Nothing worth not taking a car over as I'll do all of that in the first week. But couple that with all the other issues I had to walk away. The dealer was not happy.
I texted my wife letting her know I wasn't going to take the car, she said look at the Quad and just get the Quad as that was what I've been drooling over. The dealer at this point already walked away from me angry at this point. They also didn't have a mechanic there at this point so they couldn't hook it up to read the codes and did not offer to call me today with an explanation. The dealer said "hey no worries, I'll turn this around and sell this tomorrow". Moments prior he promised that the car was up to date with all its shots (software flashes) but as there was obviously issues with warning messages, I was a bit surprised he wasn't going to look into those issues and get them resolved for the next customer. If they were then why wouldn't they just do it for me right then or today and then call me to tell me it was resolve? Of course, there's the off chance they were sick of me and didn't want to deal with me anymore
SO my question to the group is, was this worth walking away from? I'm not going to get this car with the same specs unless I want to drive to Texas from Pennsylvania! I'm actually now considering the Quad and the S4 now at this point if I'm going to spend big boy money but as this is my daily driver and my commute is 35 miles one way, I'm really kicking myself for passing on this car. I knew though that if I took this car I would be waiting for the next warning and having to take the car to the only dealer near me that I couldn't work out a deal with that will not give a rental if you don't buy the car from them. I'm too busy with work/life not to have a semi reliable car or at least a quick rental swap to get back on the road. Not to mention, the peer pressure of everyone I know saying WHY would you consider that car, and yet you still bought it and now you are taking it the shop a week after you bought it?!
Does anyone know how benign these messages are? I see a sizable number of 'anomalies' on these forums with errors and issues which would actually make me think twice about going on a long road trip with this car with my young kids in the back. That just shouldn't be for such a new car in 2018 but as this was to be my daily driver and weekend car for the family when we go places together from time to time except when we hit the mountains, I wasn't too worried and was ok with taking a car with some 'quirks'.