On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 07:54:41 +0100, "Graeme Cosgrove"
> wrote:

<Snip>
>Question 3 is "isn't (potentially) £800 a lot of money to spend to service a
>two and a half year old car?"

It is. However, it's not unusual with Alfas and Main Dealerships. My
third year service at 25000 miles cost this and there was nothing
unusually big in the work that was done (just stuff like bushes and
handbrake cable etc). Trouble is that, with a normal service being
more than 300UKP for me, any extra work quickly adds up to a very
large sum. Next year, it'll get the A/C regassed (add another 100UKP)
and I'd not be surprised if there's belts, more bushes or whatever.
I'm saving up a scary 1000UKP just to cover this possibility.

Before I bought it, research had shown me that the 156 was VERY
expensive to run. Nobody put proper figures to it but, in my case, my
car costs 0.10UKP per mile in maintenance costs ONLY. Frankly, it's a
dire figure (it's more than my fuel cost) and it will determine
whether my next car is an Alfa or not. Don't get me wrong, I love the
car but I can get a better pleasure/cost ratio elsewhere.This is
particularly so as the chances for having a fun drive in the UK
diminish with the quality of the roads (rapidly scraping the bottom
off my car), the dire state of British driving and speed cameras...

<snip>

--
Z
Scotland
Alfa Romeo 156 2.4JTD Veloce Leather
'Oil' be seeing you..
(Email without 'Alfa' in subject are auto-deleted..sorry!)