If you were a carmaker, and you provided vehicles to the automotive press for them to write about how great your car is, wouldn't you go over the press cars with a fine-toothed comb to make sure that the press vehicles are the best possible vehicles you can make and in tip-top conditions?
Well, there are signs that FCA is providing Alfa Romeo Giulias to the press corps that aren't exactly trouble free. Car and Driver, Consumer Reports, Carbuzz, and Jalopnik have all reported problems. Check out this article in Jalopnik, or this one at Carbuzz.
Back in 2008, on the old Top Gear show, Jeremy Clarkson hit the nail on the head regarding Alfa Romeos when he said:
"Alfa builds a car to be as good as a car can be....briefly."
The last time I saw reliability warning signs like this from the trade press, it was the Cadillac Catera, and that car was a depreciation nightmare for its owners.
FCA is advertising a $299 lease on the Alfa Romeo, and if you are attracted to the concept of getting a sporty Italian car for the price of a boring domestic, by all means lease one. If you buy one, you need to be familiar with your state's lemon law. In Indiana, if a vehicle is int he shop for 30 days or more in the first 18 months or 18,000 miles OR 4 or more repair attempts for the same problem and the problem still exists, it qualifies for lemon law protection. If you are an Indiana buyer or lessee and you end up with a lemon, please feel free to call me at 317-662-4529. If your car qualifies under the lemon law, you should get your choice of a buy-back (adjusted for mileage) or replacement plus your attorney fees paid by the manufacturer.
By the way, I get a lot of calls by buyers of older cars who think their car is a lemon. The lemon law (in Indiana) only applies to vehicles that go bad in the first 18 months or 18,000 miles after they are delivered to the FIRST buyer. This means that most used cars are NOT lemons, so you don't get the same remedies.
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