2500 miles in a 513bhp Giulia Quadrifoglio: fun, fuel and failures

The first being: do the Italians do it better? At this stage, I have yet to put mega-miles on the car. But it is very different from the offerings from AMG, RS, and M. For a start, it is nothing short of beautifully set up for our broken Great British roads.

I love the way you can set the driving mode to ‘angry’ with a twist of a dial, then immediately set the dampers to soft with a button on the same dial. Both ergonomically sensible and a satisfying thing to do.

I can’t quite believe I’m writing this, but I also need to answer the question of ‘is the Giulia QV actually quite good value?’ News has just come through that the new Audi SQ5 will cost £75,000. The Audi is a bit more practical, of course, but its V6 is 150bhp down on the Alfa’s and it is a much less exciting and less exotic prospect.

Then we have the expense of fairly mundane EVs, on which I won’t waste column inches here. The final and perhaps most intriguing subject of investigation is the engine. In my short time with the Alfa I have already fielded numerous questions from very knowledgeable industry people about the engine’s origins.

Alfa’s engineers have described the all-aluminium unit as being ‘inspired’ by Ferrari’s 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8: both motors share a 90deg bank angle, cylinder bore and stroke measurements and a turbocharger supplier.

There’s also Maserati’s Nettuno V6. I’ve experienced it a fair bit in our MC20 long-termer, and I think they feel and sound pretty different. But there’s no denying that both also share that 90deg bank angle and the same 8000rpm limit. Just how closely related are they?

But that’s all food for future reports. How am I getting on with the Quad so far? Brilliantly, thank you. I’ll write more about the delightful way it drives later; in the meantime, I have been dealing with a few quite Italian quirks.

That new digital display behind the steering wheel is configurable and can change depending on which driving mode you’re in. I like the option that’s modelled on classic Alfa dials: it is truly fantastic. Like a classic Alfa, but it’s all reliable, works consistently and can tell you important things, such as the fuel economy. Except there’s one enormous quirk.

The ‘miles to empty gauge’ in the bottom left corner ticks down with a very satisfying animation. It’s great to watch but is almost useless: it theatrically tells you the miles to empty is changing, but of course cars have different ways of calculating this.

It goes up as well as down; and it’s not like it diligently ticks down mile by mile, or every five miles. It seemingly spits out random numbers at will, with no rhyme or reason why or when.

The infotainment is a bit naff, too. Yes, reader, I am a millennial. And, yes, I am complaining about the touchscreen in my 513bhp Italian super-saloon. The screen itself is fine – at 8.8in it’s a good deal smaller than the Germans’. But I really don’t care that much.

The graphics are also a bit behind the Germans in terms of cleanliness, and the UX (user experience if you’re wondering) is behind the curve. Again, no biggie for me. But what has annoyed me so far is the lack of wireless Apple CarPlay.

It’s a minor foible, but the whole plugging in, taking it out, making the wire and phone fit in the box situated in the armrest is a tad annoying. Maybe it will irritate me less over time.

Update 2

Road test editor Matt Saunders wrote a brilliant piece about Polestar's head of chassis development, Joakim Rydholm, in which he made a point about not allowing national stereotypes to get in the way of fair judgement. Anyway, my Alfa Romeo has broken down a bit.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think this tale begins in Wales. I had just crossed over the border when an unwanted bong nudged my attention. "Check Airbag " and "SOS Call Error" messages hung around like turds in a pool, but after around 10 minutes the warnings disappeared and I was left alone with my thoughts, the Alfa's V6 and the sheep.

To be perfectly honest, when I got back to London, I forgot about the warning bongs and promptly went on holiday. I lent the car to my colleague Jack Warrick and he had the same issues.

He then lent it to Classic & Sports Car's Aaron McKay, who had some real issues. He needed some wheels to get him to his grandad's 80th birthday bash over in Wales, and while it whisked him along the M4 fine, getting home wasn't so easy.

On the Saturday, a burst of well-known warning lights and bongs alerted him to some mysterious malady. It was still upset on the Sunday morning when some unknown turmoil had managed to drain the battery and sound the alarm.

Aaron couldn't get a response from jump leads on the boot-mounted battery. The local mechanic managed to find the positive terminal under the bonnet, but even he needed an extra battery to boost his Ford Transit to get the Alfa to turn over 

Good news: the Alfa lived. Bad news: it was stuck in limp home mode, with only around 150bhp. Aaron battled through, and once the car was back into England, it cleared its error codes and allowed normal driving again.

My theory? The Alfa hates Wales. Perhaps it's a huge rugby fan and wanted to hammer home the 24-21 win for Italy that resulted in Wales first Six Nations wooden spoon in 21 years. Perhaps it's just bad luck. Or perhaps you actually can let a touch of national stereotypes cloud your judgements on cars.

Update 3 

I bet you own, or have owned, a classic car. Or a weekend car. Or something along those lines. I certainly have. An NA MX-5. Eventually life got in the way and I got rid of it when in one year it accrued a measly 200 miles.  

As I approach my mid-thirties, I seemingly have even less time to enjoy cars. But a few weeks ago something marvelous happened. Plans that had been in the diary for months disappeared. Whoosh. Just gone. A whole Saturday deleted with just a day’s notice. 

In my mind’s to-do list there is a post-it note fluttering around, its adhesive quality slowly being lost over the two years since I moved into my flat and placed it there. It reads “find a good driving road near me”. And today, I am finally gripping that day-glow yellow square between my thumb and forefinger and putting it in the bin. Of my mind.

But I couldn’t just get into the Etna Red Quad, thumb the big starter switch, twist the drive selector to Dynamic and press the soft suspension button that is nestled between said twister. No, I, like any Millenial, had to consult Google first.

I point blank refuse to tackle any task, no matter how small, inconsequential or seemingly easy before Googling it. Eventually after wading through AI drivel, I stumbled across a very old post that mentioned some specific parts of Essex, close-ish to where I live, so I headed there.

It was a crisp, clear, brown-hued Autumn day and the Alfa really felt alive once I got it out of the 30mph zones. When I got to some A and B roads, with the engine warmed up and exhaust valves open and growling, I really began to feel where the Quad is at its best. It’s all pretty mechanical and visceral too; not dissimilar from a classic if you can get the lane assist and stop-start bypassed in your mind.

The Autumn leaves and mud elicited a few scrabbles for traction, a true hallmark of going for a drive in my eyes, and the Quad’s steering ebbed and flowed, tightened and loosened up so naturally I felt as comfortable ringing its neck as if I was driving something much less powerful and spiky.

It would be remiss of me to not mention the state of the UK roads here. Turning right at a countryside T junction allowed me to test the Alfa’s quick steering. Two and a quarter turns between locks gives me enough manoeuvrability to pick a course, avoiding the worst of the massive holes I encountered. And at speed, the Alfa, with the soft spring button engaged, is masterful here, almost skipping over these defects.

My colleague Matt Saunders, as ever, was correct when he wrote “On a good smooth surface the Giulia is fine in its firmest mode, while on broken surfaces it’s ideally planted in its softer mode.” In the UK of course,  a good smooth surface is increasingly hard to find.Fittingly, on the way home a chap in a Black Quad flashed his lights at me and waved, and I returned the favour. Like a classic car owner. But unlike with a classic, I don’t need to store the Alfa in a garage. I still haven’t quite found a brilliant driving route near me. Which means that post-it note remains flapping around in my mind, but I guess it also gives me another excuse to go out and find a great driving road.

The addendum to this is that since this brilliant drive things have not been so rosy for the Alfa. The Monday after the cancelled Saturday I drove it into our Twickenham office so that I could lend it to my learned colleague Kris Culmer. Being in standstill traffic on the North Circular pre 0700 was pretty hard to stomach, but not much could bring my spirits down after the weekend I’d had. Until a message from Kris arrived that evening. The Alfa had broken down within 2 miles of the office. A parking brake fault, complete with a new error message. Oh Alfa.

Final update 

Right, then, strap in: we have a lot to get through here. I'll address the question of whether I'd have a QV over something more German shortly. First I just wanted to offer a brief chronology of the car's time at Autocar.

It arrived. It was summer. The sun was shining and the V6 was singing. Life was good. Before long, deputy road test editor Richard Lane needed the car to be in Wales for a feature that also involved an Alpine A110 and a Maserati MC20 and I obliged happily.

The drive west to Wales was magnificent - especially when I dipped off the motorway and onto the A5. The direct, tight steering and supple suspension made mincemeat of the topography. But almost as soon as I entered Wales, I got the first warning lights. Yes, plural. I got distracted by the scenery, and the next time I looked down the warning lights had gone.

I drove home, without issue. Shortly after, I lent the Quadrifoglio to staff writer Jack Warrick for two weeks while I was on holiday. Jack became miffed with the fuel economy and handed the keys to colleague Aaron McKay, who works on Autocar's sibling publication Classic & Sports Car.

During Aaron's time with the car, he drove it to Wales, where it again began misbehaving. They were the same issues I'd experienced. Except... Aaron returned to it one night to discover it had a completely flat battery. D'oh. But it was nothing an AA van couldn't fix. Aaron drove the car from Wales to London and deposited it on our carpark's naughty step.

All the while, it transpired that the Alfa's plates had been cloned and some wrong un had been milling around Shoreditch, London, in a pre-facelift Giulia Quadrifoglio collecting parking fines and accruing congestion charge tickets.

I returned from a relaxing trip away to find all these problems, but even if it eroded my holiday calm I couldn't be cross at the Alfa.

Not least because the hard reset had got rid of the various warning lights. Fast forward a month or so and the Alfa had been acting impeccably, so I lent it to chief sub editor Kris Culmer. But it developed a handbrake fault immediately. That was just a week or so before but was due to go back to Alfa.

But this is Alfa ownership. It was never going to be like having a Toyota Corolla. And I truly love it for that. The Quadrifoglio is a supremely special thing. We're in a bit of a last hurrah for the combustion engine and I just know that classic car magazines in 30 years will have special editions dedicated to this car, with pages specifically on the engine.

The ride has a fluency that no other super-saloon matches, and after more than 2500 miles this was the thing that for me simply never wore off. A good chunk of those miles were completed on the motorway, and if you discount the mpg, it was extremely good at that.

After every long journey, I couldn't help getting out, looking at the car's mean 19in alloys, low ride height and carbon fibre spoiler and just thinking: it should not be this comfortable; it shouldn't be this easy for a 191mph car to do what it just did. Sure, the fuel economy (23.5mpg test average) is hard to overlook.

And truth be told, it was a bit of a pain for me. But frankly, the typical Giulia Quadrifoglio owner will be better off than I am, and a typical Alfa Romeo owner would realistically be willing to make allowances anyway.

The Alfa isn't exactly the rational choice, when BMW M3s and Mercedes-AMG C63s are still brilliant while being a bit more reliable and cheaper to run.

But I'll put it this way. How often do you see an M or AMG being driven poorly? Or see an M or AMG with ghastly modifications? Or see an M or AMG owner and just think: "I wouldn't like to go round theirs for dinner because they will serve something unpalatable and have crap wine?" Whereas with a Quadrifoglio owner, I just don't think those things.

So then. The Quad. I had very high expectations and it was as brilliant, as thrilling and as perilous as I thought the experience might be. Only, slightly more comfortable and slightly more expensive.

Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio specification

Prices: List price new £78,195 List price now £80,545 Price as tested £82,245 Options: Etna Red paint £2500, Driver Assistance Package £1100, red brake calipers £450

Fuel consumption and range: Claimed economy 28.0mpg Fuel tank 58 litres Test average 23.5mpg Test best 33.3mpg Test worst 18.8mpg Real-world range 300 miles