Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Might Be the World’s Least Reliable Car

By Daud Gonzalez - July 8, 2019

There’s luxury cars that break down often, then there’s Alfa Romeo, and the 505 horsepower Guilia Quadrifoglio.

Alfa Romeo’s history is rich with heritage. In racing, they are famous for being victorious across various disciplines over decades of time. They still remain one of the oldest car manufactures in the world. Over the past couple of years, Alfa Romeo has made a conscious effort to fight once again in the U.S. market. When they introduced the Giulia sedan in 2015 for the U.S. market, most of us were stunned. It had obviously Italian body lines, unique styling, and even the base model looked like it belonged on the track. Then, when got to take a look at the high-performance Quadrifoglio, we were stunned by its performance figures and visual aggressiveness to the point the car made a BMW M3 look plain and under-powered.

The Giulia looked like exactly what Alfa Romeo needed to turn the brand around, and let its European competition know who is the boss in the sports sedan market. What could go wrong? Well, what if we told you, everything? Car and Driver frequently does “long-term” driving test of cars, usually around 40-50 thousand miles to ensure the car is getting a holistic review as it ages over time. C&D did this test with an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio and it may have been the most unreliable and least consistent car they have had to date. Here’s why.

Alfa Giulia

Let’s consider the Giulia is so good, MotorTrend gave it their 2018 Car of The Year award. Wow! The car must be great then huh? Well, its all fun and games until you have it for more than two weeks. Car and Driver took their Giulia around for over a year and put on a substantial 40,000 miles of driving within that time. To summarize their experience, they wrote “rarely have we hoped for a car in our possession to succeed more than we did for this Alfa. And rarely have we been more consistently disappointed”. Ouch. Sadly, that’s going to be the main theme that resonates throughout their whole experience with the car. Let’s list some of those situations:

2,400 miles – service electronic throttle control, check engine light, small coolant leak after inspection, issue unsolved
4,100 miles – service electronic throttle control, check engine light, fuel pump replaced, issue unsolved
10,000 miles – differential replaced, oil change, car in shop for 31 days
18,500 miles – engine oil level low, sensor reflashed
23,000 miles – service electronic throttle control, check engine light, issue unsolved
27,000 miles – electrical issue with turn signal, parking sensors and rear door, issue unsolved
31,000 miles – engine oil level low, sensor reflashed and replaced with new software, car in shop for 19 days
34,000 miles – service electronic throttle control, check engine light, electrical connector replaced

Long story short, the Giulia spent 80 days or almost 3 months sitting at the dealership being repaired or warrantied during its first year or so of life. There is an acceptable amount of error and downtime, but anything around 20% is not in any way acceptable. Our advice? If you really must own a Giulia, make sure its your 3rd, maybe fourth car that you only take out a day or two and buy all the extended warranties you can afford (you’ll need them).