Re: Handbrakes

["Jonathan Wolff" <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Some of you may remember that almost 3 months ago my 164 rolled
backwards into a wall, destroying the rear bumper and nearside rear
wing, and bending the rear panel.  Well I've finally got the car back
and it's been a catalogue of misfortune from start to end.

Within three days of the accident we had agreed that the car would be
repaired by the insurance company's preferred repaired, who were Alfa
Romeo approved and affiliated with an Alfa dealership in the area.  They
said that it would be two or three weeks before they could do the work,
what with getting the parts in, and having a courtesy car available.  We
were happy to wait, because we were fairly confident that they would do
a decent job as they were the only repairers who had spotted a slight
crinkle further down the wing that showed that the car would need to be
straightened on a jig.

In the end it was something like five weeks before they were ready to do
the repair, which was expect to take a week or thereabouts.  When we
didn't hear from them after almost two weeks we phoned, and found out
that they had been unable to get hold of a new rear bumper, and didn't
know when they would.  Eventually after we, the repairers, and the
insurance company had all spoken to Alfa Romeo UK we found out that
there wasn't one anywhere in Europe at the time, but there would be one
available in two weeks, and it would take a further two weeks to get it
to England!

That seems ridiculous to me.  That car is a '94 Cloverleaf, with the
(sort of) metallic grey bumpers and side panels.  OK, so only the
Cloverleaf has had that style of bumper since the '93 facelift, but as I
understand it under European law they are obliged to keep stocks of
spares for all cars until 10 years after production ceases.  Does anyone
know anything about this?  The repairers were paying for a courtesy car
while they were waiting for AR to get their act together - I hope they
managed to get AR to contribute to that.

Eventually we managed to get them to hurry things up and the bumper was
delivered at the start of last week.  However in the meantime the
repairers had managed to wipe out the front air dam, nearside front
foglight, and the radiator by driving the car onto a car lift that
wasn't fully lowered.  They had no problem getting hold of the parts
(even the front air dam), and fixed the damage immediately.

So after a few more delays due to illness we went to get the car this
morning.  I was disappointed to find paint blobs (which they touched up
on request), that the creases didn't quite match up (they rehung the
door to fix that), but more disturbingly the curve at the top of the C
pillar doesn't quite match the curve of the roof so it stands slightly
proud towards the rear.  The repairers couldn't reshape the curve, and
there wasn't enough leeway in fitting the panel to get it to line up at
both ends.  This is a genuine Alfa Romeo part, it clearly doesn't fit to
anything like the same standard as the original part, and the 164 is
still virtually a current model!  Also the bumper, which took so long to
arrive, has ragged moulding edges at the ends of the grooves where the
curved bevel starts.  Apparently the bumper was delivered to the
repairers fully finished so again this sounds like poor quality control
at Alfa Romeo.  We still hope that either Alfa Romeo or our insurers
will pay for the numper to be refinished to an acceptable quality.

All in all I was disappointed that after such a long wait I would be so
dissatisfied with the results.  If, as the repairers allege, some of
these problems can be attributed to Alfa Romeo, I am very surprised
given the excellent quality of the 164.  Perhaps only buyers of new cars
can expect any sort of commitment to quality.


Finally the temperature gauge was behaving oddly in the shortish drive
this morning.  I hope they properly refilled and bled the cooling system
after replacing the radiator.  The car warmed up to 70 degrees as usual,
then after driving for a while it had dropped down to 40.  It always
used to settle down at various temperatures with no apparent correlation
to conditions, but never as low as that (usually somewhere between 50
and 75, occasionally going up to near 90 in hot weather and slow
traffic).  Could other people with 3 litre 164s, preferably Cloverleaves
in England, describe their cars' behaviour for comparison?

But it's great to drive my own car again, instead of a poxy little 1.25
litre (yep, 3 significant figures!) Fiesta.  People actually get out of
my way in the fast lane now!  And I can choose to listen to CDs or that
glorious engine note!  Life is worth living again.

- -- 
Jonathan Wolff <jon@domain.elided>
Programmer
Argonaut Software Ltd.

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