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Thread: Alfa Romeo 147 2.0 TS (2008)

  1. #1
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    Alfa Romeo 147 2.0 TS (2008)

    Bought it at Valentine's Day - Picked it up at the dealership yesterday!

    Alfa Romeo 147 2.0 Twin Spark - 'Business Pro' Edition (5 door)
    150 HP - 1.245 Kg
    Black metallic with brown leather interior. Road registered in July 2008.

    Currently 46.500 km on the clock, from first owner and always dealer serviced with full history. Cambelt replaced in May last year. Passed 'her' first MOT, which is now valid up to 2014. Also I have 6 months dealer garantee (hopefully not needed, but it is an Alfa ).

    Equipped with a lot of options, some usefull, some less. The only things which are missing are colourcodes mirrors. No-one will notice though, as the car is already black. The standard speaker system is a bit of a let down. Not that I can or will complain, this car is great! I removed the emblems on the back (147 and 2.0 T.Spark) plus the dealer plates for a clean distinctive look.

    Currently fitted with Continental winter tires (205 mm wide). It is not that I ordered winter tires, but they were already on the car. I like the 16 inch multi-spoke wheels, although they are a nightmare to clean. In the future, I would like to go for 17 inch as a maximum. I tend to go for multi-spoke design again though (the wheels which are also on the GT). Maybe the exhaust can use an upgrade optically. For the rest this car does not need anything else, the design is great in my humble opinion. I have seen some ugly spoilers in the brochure at the dealership, which would be an absolute disgrace on this type of car.

    Unfortunately, the car is optically not 100%. But I am quite a perfectionist to say the least! Most probably I will be the only one to notice. There are some small scratches and places where the paint has been damaged during the first 3,5 years of ownership. The other car (Twingo), which we bought new, is almost the same age, but the exterior has less imperfections. Ah well, when the sun is up again in March or April I will give the Alfa the TLC it deserves with the polishing machine. Also I will clean and treat the leather. I can make it look even better as it does today, after delivery from dealership!

    As described earlier in detail, this car is no GTA but delivers more then adequate power (especially when you are used to 100 hp less). This afternoon we made a 100 km trip on the freeway and back to home. The sound of the 4-cylinder is very nice when the rev's go up. The subtle push in the back when overtaking is quite addictive! Fuel consumption is something I have taken in consideration extensively before buying the car - at the moment we are suffering from ridiculous gas prizes. Let's see how it goes. 10 Litre on 100 km would be do-able for daily use to work though - the above mentioned trips are an exception.

    The engine is smooth and the suspension is superb. The handling in corners or when pushing the rev's in straight is very stable and gives a lot of trust. There is a solid feel in the steering wheel and the ride feels almost sporty, without being uncomfortable. In the corners, it feels like a lighter car. However, when braking you definitely feel the difference of +350 kg when you are used to a smaller car!

    The switch from a 1999 Ford Ka to this can not be described in words. I feel absolutely spoiled. For me, it feels like a dream came true. I know this sounds silly for people at the other side of the ocean, where driving a V6 or V8 is common without spending ridiculous amounts of money. That does not matter though. I can not comment yet if I made a 'wise' decision on buying an Italian car, which is not very fuel economic and precious to maintain. But at least I can say I owned an Alfa and followed my heart.

    The only issue so far is that my wife drove the Alfa as well... She likes cars, but normally doesn't care about them too much. Well, this car turned a big smile on her face. I thought she would be happy with the Twingo now, which is officially 'her' car, but there is a chance that I must hide the keys from the Alfa from time to time ...

    I will update this thread from time to time with my experiences.
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    Last edited by Man of Steel; 02-18-2012 at 03:40 PM.

  2. #2
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    Congrats! I'm sure you will experience an exceedingly-wide range of emotions caring for and driving this car.
    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
    "No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"

  3. #3
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    Nice purchase!

    Enjoy the car!

    Not that I doubt your purchase, but I feel like you need to do an Egg Nogg, as per forum convention.

  4. #4
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    Hi Paapaa, with a join date of March '12 and 4 posts you are well aware of the forum conventions, no doubt. I guess you read a lot before joining

    Seriously, I will take the picture soon but I'd rather wait to put some more pictures and details up, instead of posting one silly shifter picture in the meantine (although it is common practice here).

    To be continued.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Man of Steel View Post
    Hi Paapaa, with a join date of March '12 and 4 posts you are well aware of the forum conventions, no doubt. I guess you read a lot before joining

    Seriously, I will take the picture soon but I'd rather wait to put some more pictures and details up, instead of posting one silly shifter picture in the meantine (although it is common practice here).

    To be continued.
    Note the fact that paapaa directly copied/pasted from the post above.. seems there's been an influx of that lately.
    Life's too short to drive bad cars.

  6. #6
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    Wow, that's the quickest ban I've seen- 1 post ban.

  7. #7
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    Woops, now I feel silly. I overreacted on an Internet ghost actually.

  8. #8
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    Nice car.




    Woops, now I feel silly. I overreacted on an Internet ghost actually.

    ^^^^^ I thought i'd try a bit of Copy & Paste. Doesn't really work for me.
    Last edited by thebrochureman; 03-08-2012 at 01:04 PM.
    Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets you."
    — Jeremy Clarkson

  9. #9
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    I might as well put some other pic's up, but no shifter pic taken yet.

    Experiences so far, after 1.000 km.

    The oil level is still filled to the max. For the Twin Spark engines this needs extra monitoring, especially in the beginning of ownership. I guess eventually I have to fill it up, it is an Italian car after all . The maximum oil usage is even referred to in the manual (as 400 gram per 1.000 km). Coolant fluid remains nicely between the min and max level too, although I only checked that since this week. Just a double check at the start of the 'relationship' won't harm anyone I thought ...

    Fuel consumption with daily traffic is quite good for this particular car, 1 litre gets me as far as 11 km. Unfortunately, by the time I reach the open road and the 2-litre is warmed up I am already near my destination (but at least I travel in style). This definitely adds to the positive 'MPG' figure. But the car is made for longer trips, so I am actually planning those in the weekends. This would be the perfect car to drive to France, the seats are superb. At 4.000 RPM 'Mr. Hyde' is on the loose and the real fun starts. MPG is not so positive anymore then, but what the heck. The sound is beautiful!

    Soon I will improve some cosmetic stuff on the car. There is a rip in the leather on the driver's side and I don't like that. It will cost €85 to fix, the car is worth it. Also I seem to be missing a small plastic interior part on the door handle at the passengers side, should someone ever notice. That will cost me zero. The wheel bolts are quite rusted (did I already tell I am quite a perfectionist), but not sure how long they will look good when replacing them. To replace all 20 of them would cost about €70. But maybe I should keep some rust on the car for the Italian look

    The bigger investments are a new set of wheels, for looks but also because I still have (soft) winter tires and they can not go forever. I looked at Alfa 147 TI multi-spoke wheels in 17 inch, they are beautiful! Maybe in the future another exhaust system would be nice, just for an even warmer sound, without being over the top (it would not suit the car). There is a company which makes custom-made silencers and exhausts here, you can determine the exact look and sound of the system. It is pricey, but it will last a lifetime as it is made out of high quality stainless steel. Ah well, first need to check my account before even dreaming of that ...

    Bottomline is : This car is great. I like its style and interior, the driving experience... Loving it!
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  10. #10
    Congratulations,

    This car looks really nice,

  11. #11
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    Beautiful! I've always wanted a newer Alfa here in the states...
    Im Im Impossible!

  12. #12
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    19th of April 2012, part I:

    I had the urge to register my car at the Dutch 147 Register. Basically what they are doing is putting the details of the cars in an online register and establishing a link between the owners, without putting their personal details up (phew). Last week I looked up the options of my automobile on the Internet to find out what the Business Pro package actually meant for the 147. For the register, I had to know which options on the car were factory options and which were not.

    It turned out that all options I have were already included in the luxurious Business Pro package (more about that later), on top of the 147 standard equipment. To sum up the list :

    - 16" alloy wheels
    - Alloy doorsteps
    - ASR
    - Audio control on steering wheel
    - Armrest in the front
    - Climate control
    - Cruise Control
    - Fog lights
    - Leather interior
    - Leather steering wheel and gear knob
    - Vehicle Dynamic Control (VDC)

    I have two additional options though. Parking sensors were a factory option and a carkit was built in. I got #33 in the register BTW, not so many 147 owners here who have a mental distortion about their car I am afraid...

    Recently I washed the car and I did not notice anything special about the paint, which was stated as being metallic in the original advertisement. Probably I still had my sunglasses on as later on, when I opened the hatch, I noticed a sticker stating "Nero Pastello" (colour code 601) which is plain black and no metallic paint

    So I will have quite some detailing work on the paint, plain black is a bee-jatz to maintain. Luckily it is a hobby of me...
    I was hoping to polish and wax the car in April to make it look like new again, but could not manage that due to lack of time and the rain here. I sticked to washing the car (again) and taking some nice photo's for the Dutch Alfa Club magazine.

    Yes - I am hooked, I am a nutjob, I have an obsession about my car bla-bla-bla. I actually enjoy writing very much (must have picked the wrong profession) so I wrote an article about my experiences with the car, which they liked. It will be published in June here. The Club has approx. 4,900 enthousiasts which will receive the magazine, so that means I will be famous soon!

    Because I obliged to stick to forum regulations I also took the opportunity to post the legendary gearstick photo with stupid text, otherwise no-one would have believed I owned this beauty (I lend it from my neighbour to poke your eyes out)
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    Last edited by Man of Steel; 06-01-2012 at 01:14 PM.

  13. #13
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    19th of April 2012, part II:

    It was meant to be to buy 17" wheels this summer and to fit them with Pirelli P Zero Nero tyres. Of course, an Italian car should roll on Italian make tyres and this particular tyre is a good quality sports tyre. But in the meantime, there were other things in daily life which costed money. Hence the decision to leave the wheels as is for the moment, which is certainly no punishment as they suit the car very well im my humble opinion.

    The winter Conti's had started to wear pretty quickly in the meantime, faster than I had noticed. Actually I am not a rubber freak, so upon purchase of the car I did not poke the rubber or inspected the thread, although at a glance thread looked OK. Two days later, on 16th of February, the car passed MOT without any remarks. I always make sure that sufficient air is in the tyres and in general, I am not exactly driving like being chased by the devil. But after checking after three weeks, I was surprised by the amount of air that had already left the tires.

    After that little shocking moment, I made sure to check the air on weekly basis. Bringing a visit to the local tyre shop, it turned out that the winter tyres became useless after approx. 3.500 km's in "my posession". Two tyres had only about 2 mm thread left and the other two about 3 mm. Tyres were also showing tear and wear marks from either too low tyre pressure or bad camber. Really a miracle that the car still behaved very well, as I was close to driving on slicks. One advantage was that I did not have to store the winter tyres, these were disposed off straight away.

    Winter tyres had size 215/55/R16 so logically I asked for the same size summer tyres. Eventually I had another plan for tyres but no Pirelli's for now, but also no low budget Chinese make of course. I opted for the make Tyfoon, type Successor 2 which seems to be a good choice in its segment. According to Internet reviews, it can keep up well with its more expensive counterparts. Of course not all reviews were positive, but most important is my feeling about the tyres - which is positive. The car accelerates slightly better and steering and especially braking have much improved. Also these summer tyres are less noisy then the soft winter rubber.

    What I noticed about the car after getting it from the dealership was that the steering wheel did not return completely to its straight "fixed" position. Honestly I did not pay much attention to this. But now the new tyres were fitted I also had the camber settings checked at the tyre shop, which was no waste of time and money it appeared. They were unable to provide a print-out there (darn computers) but they corrected the settings and alligned everything, which will hopefully save me from some tear and wear of the tyres. The steering wheel did not return to its original position though, although the misallignment is small and can hardly be noticed.

    While reading the 200+ pages manual from my car, I lost attention when coming to the later pages with a lot of numbers and technical details. These did not read like a novel to be honest, so I fell asleep reading them. It seems the original tyre size is 205/55/R16, not 215/55/R16. What influence this will have, is unknown as the winter tyres already had the (apparently wrong) size. Tyres for 17 inch will have 215/45 size BTW.

    Benefit when fitting the tyres was that I could enjoy the undercarriage of my car. Also looking good without the wheels, planning on leaving them off
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    Last edited by Man of Steel; 06-01-2012 at 01:52 PM.

  14. #14
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    19th of April 2012, part III:

    As already indicated before my improvements to the car have to go in stages, as money is not unlimited. It is very tempting to spend a few grand or more in the car, but the possibilities are not there at the moment. Blimey, I should not complain after having driven a purple Ford Ka from 1999!

    Being a perfectionist, I can get happy from details though. It is not that everything has to cost loads of money. The car did have two types of tyre valve caps for instance (steel and plastic). Steel looks goods, but if the other ones are plain plastic it is a bit useless in my opinion. With the tyre change, the tyre valve caps are replaced with plain plastic ones for sake of ease. But at least one type is fitted now.

    What annoyed me was that the car had extremely rusted wheel bolts. The wheel bolts are not covered by a plastic cap like Audi (to name a make), so they are directly visible. I noticed that numerous cars have rusty bolts, because now I was paying attention to that detail. But mine were really ugly, like they had a vacation in the Dead Sea for three weeks or so. This could not continue! So I orders four sets (20 pieces) of new wheel bolts and fitted them. The result is really nice, the only question is for how long they will look as new. Ah well, car is approx. 4 years old so hopefuly they will last a while...

    Also took the opportunity to clean the wheels using a decent cleaner and wheel brush. The wheel brush is a gift from Heaven with the nice-but-terrible-to-clean multi-spoke wheels. The wheels have never been cleaner since my ownership, but it is impossible to get them 100%.

    The inside you can never reach and there is a lot of dust, dirt and grime which attached to the wheels after years. The only solution is to remove the wheels, cleaning them properly and protecting them with a wheel wax. I have a slight impression that this was never been done before by previous owner The wax will protect the wheels from brake dust and dirt and make them tremendously easier to maintain.

    But for now, please note the subtle differences. Did I already say I was quite a perfectionist?
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    Last edited by Man of Steel; 06-01-2012 at 02:16 PM.

  15. #15
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    Pictures after cleaning the car in April.
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