Hi all, I am looking at buying a 2006 Alfa 156 JTS Manual. It has done 130,000kms but has service history from new with books, receipts etc. Took it for a drive and seems to drive very well, no warning lights are showing, electricals all seem to work fine. Would I expect more things to start to go wrong with a high milage Alfa rather than a low milage one? The car is still only 4 years old so I would expect it to still go well into the 200k mark without major work having to be done? I had a TS with 170k on it a couple of years ago now and it was fine, so I'm assuming the same here with a JTS?
Whats the most anyone has done so far in their 2.0 JTS and what (if any) problems have you experienced.
Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.
i would take a close look at what it has had done in the past.
onbviously cam belt is important, but there are a few big ticket items on the JTS including the pre-cat and main cat...
most cars have had coil issues at some point, and if it has been running with MAF or misfiring issues for a while, the cats get real chewed by either lean or rich condition... The whole assembly can run $3.5k+
also at that mileage, clutch if it hasn't been done... full front wishbones... also overall suspension...
may i ask how much u're looking at? if its the $10k one on carsales, it's probably pretty reasonable given the money, and if it looks to present well u're probably onto a winner (for the dough)...
I rang up and spoke to the owner of that '06 156 on carsales going for 10K. He said it's slightly noisy in the top end, but I haven't looked at it. What usually gets noisy on the head of these cars? Worn cam lobes? Variator? Valves?
Looks like cheap 156's can become very expensive very quickly..
at that sorta mileage, if it hasn't been done before i would suspect cam phase variator... but it's a distinctive diesel sound, not tappety
and yes u're right... thats why i would pass over such examples (cheap for a reason)... at that kinda mileage and use u can easily encounter costs bringing it into the price range of a good example with half those miles... (not that mileage in itself is a bad thing)
but yep, a poor JTS can be very expensive to remedy, and then the rest of the car is high mileage...
and yes, with less than spectacular oil care u can expect to have no lobes on cyl1... perhaps some bottom end damage too..
like wankski has already said, a JTS engine that hasn't been maintained properly is a money black hole. Especially knowing that in this case it has a high mileage and owner admits to being noisy in top end.
This could mean a few things - worn cam lobes - damaged valves due to previous cam-belt snap that was fixed cheaply - possible bottom end damage due to oil starvation or the use of incorrect grade oil, etc.
The biggest giveaway here is the asking price - only $10k for the late '06 JTS with a rarer manual transmission? Even though it has higher mileage a well maintained model (remember -'06 was the last year these models were sold in Australia) in a good condition should be looking at at least $15k asking price
My advice?
Walk away