Faults:

Routine servicing and replacements until 90,000 miles, when woodruff key sheared. (this is the key which secures crankshaft pulley to crankshaft). The result was damaged valves and heads, when crankshaft and pistons continued to turn, and valves did not! Repair bill for £1605, including new cylinder heads and all ancillaries.

Engine oil leak at 110,000 miles proved very difficult to track down. Replaced cam cover gaskets. Still leaking, so replaced another seal around camshafts. Took this opportunity to replace cam belts, tensioners, (which had been done at 80,000 service), and water pump. Still leaking, so replace oil pump. Engine still drips oil overnight, but not as bad as previously.

I had the optional self leveling rear suspension fitted, as I tow a caravan. Now the nearside rear does not rise up under load. It was leaking air, but this problem was fixed with some new piping. Any suggestions?

Also, speedometer / rev. counter illumination light has failed. How do you get access to this?

General Comments:

I have had this car from new and is has now done 117,000 miles since 1996. It had 2 extras fitted at the factory - air conditioning and self leveling rear suspension.

I tow a 5 berth Swift Challenger caravan and the car has been a good tow car being both stable and having plenty of power. The self leveling rear suspension has always resulted in a level attitude (until this last summer) even with a nose weight of over 100kgs.

The car is an excellent motorway cruiser, and has plenty of space for a family of 5 including 2 teenagers.

Last summer quickly got to 140mph on German autobahn and then traffic prevented going any faster.

Faults:

The first thing to go wrong was the crankshaft timing sensor, so the cars electronics switched to 'limp home' mode which meant I could do no more than 35 mph on the M25...not fun!

A few months later whilst driving along the A1, I smelt burning, so naturally pulled off the road to check the problem. It turned out to be the Air con compressor that had seized and caught fire, fortunately,

I had a fire extinguisher to hand and put the fire out.

From that point on, it was always a question of what would go wrong next, and plenty of silly things did pack up over the period of time that I owned the car.

I was fortunate at the beginning of ownership, in the fact that it came with a warranty and did I not have to pay for a number of, otherwise, very expensive repairs.

General Comments:

When the car was running well and not in the dealership for some fault or another, it was actually a nice car to drive.

The 2.5 V6 engine had plenty of power and was well matched to the switchable auto box.

Faults:

Main problem is engine speed. Revs up very well, but when warm the revs take a long time to drop, and drop in stages.

I have had it back to a dealer twice and an independent once. Problem is this only happens when you have been driving and then stop, so it doesn't happen in the workshop, so all mechanics claim there is no problem because they rev the engine whilst stationery and the problem doesn't happen.

Radio ariel connection broken somewhere under dash - no FM. Same dealer failed to find a problem as the garage happened to be at a spot that got reception - does no-one ever test drive a car?

General Comments:

Very comfortable and easy to drive. Bit of a donkey compared to my previous Alfa.

Bit thirsty, but this could be linked to the rev problem.

Information screen is a complete waste of time. None of the information is correct - outside temp goes up as engine warms, mpg is way out.