Re: My nice new 164 is a POS

[Ian Lomax <sfalfisto@domain.elided>]

Hey Mike,

I'm sorry to hear about your impending repairs, but
there's no way you can call a nine year old, 135k mile
car a lemon.  If it had these problems new, maybe, but
you're unfortunately been on the losing side of the
gamble we all take with used cars.

That's not to say that you've lost completely.  My LS
had an oil leak in a similar spot, and it turned out
to be the oil cooler, a one hour fix during an oil
change.

My A-arms wore out, a $700 repair, but not expected at
100k + miles.  

My climate control display never worked, a crappy
design that never should have been installed.  At
least the HVAC system always worked fine, although I
never knew where it was set.

I owned my LS for a year, put 15k miles on it, and
enjoyed almost every mile.  It did have a few problems
which were expected at 100k miles, but just remember
that it was a $40k new, and repairs will be expensive.
 Once you work through these I'm sure you'll get many
miles of comfortable, high speed motoring out of it. 
It's a great car, enjoy it.

Cheers,
Ian Lomax
71 Spider
SF, CA

--- Mcmahonmik@domain.elided wrote:
> Sigh - advice and sympathy request follows:
> 
> I buy 1994 164LS auto w/ 135k mostly all highway
> miles from its 2nd owner.
> Talk to local ex-dealer, find tech for 1st owner,
> confirm no "major 
> problems".
> 
> Within 1 week it dumps the heater core.  8 hrs.
> labor.  Ouch.
> 
> I drive it 6 hours each way to Indy last weekend for
> the F1 race.  (You gotta 
> love that sh*t.)  On the way back it loses all AC
> cooling, and the display 
> for the climate control flakes out so you can't tell
> what setting it's at.
> 
> THAT'S THE GOOD NEWS!!
>    When I take it in to check for freon leaks they
> show me the serious oil 
> leak in the right front region.  Like from somewhere
> under the timing belt 
> covers where you can't see much.  So much oil that
> I'm 2 quarts low, and the 
> problem can't be easily (or cheaply) diagnosed.
> 
> Question:   Where in the right front would a 164LS
> leak oil?!?  
> The tech's guess was the cam seals.  Ouch. 
> Expensive.  Any other likely 
> places?
> 
> Question #2:  how dangerous is "waiting to see" how
> much oil I use or burn 
> from here on?   Sure, it depends on what the problem
> is, but oil on the 
> timing belt can't be good in my book...
> 
> Question #3 (rhetorical) : when do I admit that
> either I bought a lemon, or 
> that Alfas in the 90s turned into the caricature of
> the unreliable Italian 
> car?  Maybe Alfa left the US market because the 164
> drove it out...   Or 
> maybe I'm just unlucky and bitter...
> 
> Peace,
> -mike
> 86 graduate (a real Alfa)
> 94 168 ( a real pain)
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