Alfa Romeo/Stellantis - awful experience

[Mekrel]

Apologies in advance for a long post, I can't describe the absolute nightmare I've had with Alfa Romeo/Stellantis in fewer words. Being honest, part of this is to purely vent, the other part is to warn people about the comical customer service.

Where to start? I guess I need to pre-face this post with some facts. Firstly, the car (Giulia Veloce) was a brand new factory order I took ownership of in 2021 on PCP. Secondly, FCA (who owned Alfa) and PSA merged to form Stellantis, prior to this good Alfa dealerships were hard to come by and Stellantis terminated some franchise agreements with dealerships as they move to agency model. The net impact is fewer dealerships to service people's cars = busier dealerships.

In June this year my car went in for it's third annual service. I bought a three year service pack with the car and doing low miles, servicing was taking place annually. This meant the car was approaching end of warranty as the third service was due, and at this service, I pointed out I had recently noticed a small oil patch on my drive but it was intermittent considering I had parked in different spots but it only appeared in one.

The dealership (I won't name them, for reasons I'll explain) found a weep from the engine but couldn't get the car in any earlier than a month later due to the aforementioned busyness issue. As the fault was found under warranty, it would be repaired under warranty.

The day I drop the car off, I'm given a Jeep 4xE and I'm told the repair will take a few days. I'm happy with this arrangement, it's no Giulia Veloce but it's a few days and I'm mobile.

The following day the dealership calls me, tells me the issue is a bigger job than thought and requires the engine out. It'll be a couple of weeks job, they'll need the Jeep back but will apply to Alfa Romeo/Stellantis for a hire vehicle. This doesn't happen, and I'm told to keep the Jeep. I later find out it doesn't happen because AR won't cover the cost of the hire vehicle because of car is now out of warranty (even though the repair is being covered). Reminder, it's only out of warranty because of the fault being discovered on the 3rd annual service, on a car with 3 year warranty and the lead time to get it booked in.

The two weeks pass, and I'm due to go to France (using my fiancé's car). No big deal, I won't need the car being outside of the UK but I do call them to warn them that I can't return the Jeep if my car is ready whilst I'm away.

I get back from France, 4/5 weeks after dropping my car off and I call up to get an update. I'm told I'm 2nd in a queue of 4 cars requiring engine out work and it'll be W/C 2nd Sept my car will be looked at. Come Friday that week I've not heard a thing, I call up and I'm told sickness meant they didn't get to my car.

More weeks pass, I start getting impatient and insist speaking to someone senior within the service dept. I eventually get a call back and I'm told there's another customer's engine on their only engine mount and "the brand" is slowing them down in getting that engine sorted and off the mount, for mine to go on. I'm told they're doing all they can to source another mount, and try putting pressure on Stellantis CS to move things on.

Stellantis CS were nothing but a joke. They told me to send an emai for an official case to be raised, but after two weeks I had not heard a thing. After continually chasing via phone, they just kept telling me what I already knew (the engine mount issue the dealer had told me directly about). I asked to speak to someone more senior to discuss solutions (get me into a LFL vehicle, pay to get the car transported to another dealer who could fix it quicker, get another mount sourced etc). I was promised on three separate occasions for a call back within 48 hours from a manager, and I never received a call back.

I finally picked up the car Wednesday last week, in total I was without the car for 15 weeks. At no point was the severity of the issue in regards to a customer not having their car for over a quarter of a year taken seriously. The dealership has given me an additional service package free of charge, and also deducted labour costs for some repairs not covered by warranty - obviously to ensure I don't give them a scathing review.

Stellantis even had the cheek to send me an email today stating they're aware I received the car on the 30th Nov and to quote the email "We really hope to have helped you to be completely satisfied with our service and that your feedback will represent this in the short survey we will send you soon".

I told the dealership I understand the challenge with the one mount, and Stellantis slowing the repair of the engine occupying it, but their lack of communication was still awful and no matter who was to blame, the net result was I was still without my car for 15 weeks.

Currently talking to FCA finance (now called CA Finance) to claim back 15 weeks of PCP, VED and insurance for a car I've not been able to drive.

TL/DR: don't buy a brand from Stellantis, even the more premium marques such as Alfa Romeo or Maserati. Their dealership network is on it's knees and their customer service team is just woeful.

 

[Mekrel]

Seems like a return to the bad old days of Fiat-Alfa dealerships. The ones in Derby and Tamworth (Norris Brothers in Tamworth particularly, back when they had the Fiat franchise) were always utterly awful at communicating.

The only dealerships that are noted as being any good near me are Thames Slough and Unity Oxford, both of these are struggling due to the increase in custom because of the thinner dealership network. One of them even told me people are coming from as far as Swindon and Hemel (Palmers in Hemel I've heard awful things about).

Good luck if you think it’s better with other brands. Though thanks for the heads up.

To be fair, my experience with BMW was always top notch which was surprising because they were always company cars that never came from that dealership.

 

[Mekrel]

i bought an Giulia Velcoce in 2018. I loved the car, but it wasnt without its quirks. i did lots of short journeys, and the battery was never charged up properly, which meant that the rear demister never worked. it was a common issue that Alfa never bothered to fix. Other than that it was pretty trouble free until the warranty ran out.
One day, out of the blue, a bunch of warning lights came on. Parking lights (which didnt seem to be a feature i had), break lights (or reversing lights, cant remember which) and collision warning. I wasnt about to test the latter, but the lights all seemed fine.
I booked it in, Motorvogue in bedford, for a one hour diagnostics as a cost of £100ish. They mentioned when i booked it that they had something similar before that turned out to be a issue with the rear light. Two week wait for the appointment.

The day before it was due to go in, i noticed that one of the rear number plate lights wasnt working. The two lights are the same part, so i swapped them over. The issue remained on the same side, so it wasnt an issue with the number plate light. I told them this via email, and when i dropped it off, and said "start there" with the diagnostics of the issue.

POS courtesy car as usual. i had a Fiat pickup truck once, and jeep something or other, and a fiat punto i think.

At the end of the day, got an email with a stupid video of the car on the ramp with the guy measuring the tread on my obviously brand new tyres and some other "health check" nonsense, and a passing mention of the "light thats causing the problem" and that was it. Got to the garage. Bill of £100 for the "diagnostics" and a quote for a new rear light cluster, a new number plate light (that was working... i told them this), plus some labour. I queried this with the 12 year old at the service counter, as the light looked fine and all the sections were working correctly. "Oh its a problem that you cant see" was the response... on a light! I paid the £100 bill and left.

I got the car home, removed a few trims around the boot lid. Measured with a DMM around the number plate light and found there was no connection to ground for the light. followed the cable loom for a little bit. Found something sharp. Un-taped the cables and a bunch of them were broken. This took me (with no instructions on removing trims etc) about an hour and a half. Repeated working of the cable from opening the boot lid. In three years! I disconnected the battery to avoid any further damage. soldered the cables together, bit of heat shrink. re routed the cable a bit so it was under less stress, and all was well.

Hopeless.

I sent the snottiest of emails back to them them and demanded my £100 back. it took some time, but i got it back eventually.

I nervously had to keep the car another 18 months, as the new BMW 128ti i ordered, kept being delayed. I wouldnt buy another alfa, not because i think they are any more unreliable than anything else really, but i have no confidence in them being able to fix it if it does go wrong.

I currently have a car allowance through work and buy my own car. Since i dont do a lot of work miles to claim back, the allowance doesnt really cover the cost at the moment. I dont really want to own this BMW with no warranty, so i'm due to change it next year. After tax the deal pays £300 a month. you cant get much for £300 a month without putting, like 7 grand PLUS down as a deposit. I did that with the BMW because i sold the Alfa for 22k and only owed about 14k on it. I'm not going to do that again. A Kia ceed is £500 a month with no deposit on a PCP. bonkers money. Used cars are at an even higher interest rate typically.

There is talk of going company cars. I can get an EV with practically no tax cost to me (£30 a month ish). I'd lose £300 a month in salary, but i wouldnt have to buy the car, or insurance.... and its not my car, so its somebody elses problem if it goes wrong. owning a modern car is pretty stressful if it goes wrong.

The Giulia certainly has finicky electrics. You'll see many a tale of them throwing a CEL on forums, and lots of people giving a different reason why their CEL came on. The truth is, they'll throw a CEL for any odd reason.

I actually had something similar. I was getting random CELs, random in terms it would do it after a long journey where the alternator had plenty of opportunitity to charge the battery and sometimes after short journeys.

My car did break down in December 2023 but in fairness, there was water ingress in a 3rd party device I had fitted to stop the car being easily stolen via the radar port. I told the dealership about the device incase it was that, but told them the car had issues with CEL before that device was fitted.

Rather than listen, they just blamed the corroded 3rd party device and handed the car back to me with the CEL still present. Next day, CEL galore so they had the car back in and it was a faulty seatbelt stalk sensor. The stupid thing is, there was a publicly known recall about the stalk sensor that pre-dated the car going in.

This was Thames Motor Group, and they hadn't even fully reinstalled the battery in the car properly.

The car is fantastic, they're very underrated but it'll be my first and last foray into Alfa Romeo. I was seriously considering a Quadrifoglio last year, but an impending house purchase but it on the back burner. Cash reserves and equity in the car means it's possible, but I'm not risking exchanging cash for a high performance Alfa Romeo after this experience.