RE: how did Alfa get this bad rap?

[richard bies <bies@domain.elided>]

First off, Alfa is not necessarily in the clear when the part is of origin
outside Italy -- Alfa put the stepper-motors where they are, and that
placement is a big piece of the problem.

Second, the "rap" goes back much further than the eighties.  At least in
the Giulietta era, the cars were fussy -- if one tried the put-in-gas-
and-turn-the-key approach, there was trouble ahead.  Americans are just
not oriented to paying attention to the car.  Any decent car required some
attention -- when you loose one cylinder of a 4 cyl 1300cc engine, just
about anyone can't miss it -- but if you loose one of eight in a 400
cu.in. engine, quite a few thought it was still running fine.  The rub is
that there is actually little difference today between cars thought to be
reliable and cars thought to be troublesome.  Which is great -- let others
pay the premium for the myth.  (But I don't know of anyone else who buried
a failure-prone component as deeply as Alfa did with the stepper-motors --
unnecessary, at that.)

r.m.bies

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