Morgan

My Bimmer 7-Series (E38) had a label on the inside of the fuel flap that said "USE ONLY 88-99 RON". It would basically run on anything from jungle juice to Shell's finest. Bloody clever, those Germans.

Tyas, I am facing a similar issue with my DERV Golf, as my daily commute has gone down from 100 miles a day to about 5 miles a day! Whilst that is excellent news for my fuel bills, it ain't great for the health of my engine. To get around this, I regularly slip 200ml of two-stroke oil in the diesel, and use Redex Diesel Treatment with every fill-up. I also treat her to an "Italian tune-up" every now and again, driving at high road speeds, in a gear lower than I would normally be. Anything over 2,500rpm for more than 15 minutes at a time is a good rule of thumb. For me, that means doing 80-90mph in 5th gear, rather than 6th. So far, touch wood, the car is as good as gold.

I can't comment on the Alfa JTS engine specifically, though when it comes to using high-end fuels, I've always run my cars on the fuel that suits the engine best (in terms of smoothness, economy, performance, etc.) For instance, many moons ago, I had a P10 Nissan Primera 2.0 eGT, which ran like a dog on 95, but like a dream on 98. Conversely, my E38 BMW 740i ran beautifully on 95. There was no difference whatsoever when using 98 in that car. My advice would be to test 95 and 98 back to back. If you can't tell the difference, stick with 95.

Oh dear. That LOL smiley probably just cost you a cambelt.

Stop visiting this thread... It's costing you money every time!!!

Welcome to AlfaDriver, Andrew. You heard right, Smaky can be found here - he's usually lurking in the technical section. Have a look for the problems you've got in existing threads, and if you can't find 'em there, start your own thread. As for 2nd hand Alfa parts, try these guys. http://autolusso.co.uk/parts/used-alfa-parts.html If it's not listed in their online shop, give them a ring. They are generally breaking anywhere between 5 and 10 Alfas at any one time, so they might have the part you need somewhere.

You must have a Friday afternoon car... Phillipe: "Shall we finish making this 306, Pierre?" Pierre: "Phillipe, my friend, it is Friday. Let us enjoy wine, women and song." Phillipe: "You're right, of course" *downs tools* Pierre: "Anyway this one we are building is right hand drive, for a filthy rosbif, no doubt." Phillipe: "Zut alors!" *spits on car* Pierre: "Santé!" *clinks wine glasses* And that, my friend, is exactly what happened on the day they made your car.

A perfect example of why it's best to buy used. Some poor sod had to tick all the boxes worth having when the car was new. Alloys? £500 please sir. Air con? A grand, pal. Leather? That'll be £900, chum. That and the rampant depreciation that affects everything except McLaren F1s.

Seems like a nice motor, sure, but not a hundred grand's worth.

As for the relative fuel economy figures: Bentley Continental GT 6.0 W12 - 15mpg VW Golf GTD 2.0 TDi DSG - 65mpg But then, if you're in the market for a Bentley, you ain't bothered about the cost of fuel.

It staggers me that people spend so much on specced-up new cars. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they do... So I can scoop them up 10 years later for next to nothing.

Must only be the Smart car... I can't imagine an E-Class without power steering!

I have some experience of 306 diesels. From what I can remember, they're so good on fuel, I thought the gauge had broken. The bloody needle never moved!!!

I've just got a Hyundai i30 Tourer up to £21,645 on the Hyundai website. And there wasn't even an option for leather interior.

The fact you can stack on £10k's worth of options is nuts! There was stuff like "communications pack", "winter pack", "summer pack", "styling pack" and other such guff. I ticked ALL the boxes for the purposes of this exercise.

Wanting to know how much VW are charging for the new version of my car, I went on their online configurator. A few minutes of options box-ticking later, I came up with the following... For a frigging Golf! I invite others to post up screen grabs of online car configurators with all the options ticked.

Is this how your car's set up, K9d?

On the plus side, seeing as my car needs a bit of work, I'm still in an Alfa (courtesy car) at the moment.

That looks proper bang tidy, Tyas. Very tasteful. What Alfa probably should have done with the pipes in the first place.

Oooooh, touchy!

Get your arse over to the General Chit Chat section, MJS. Your Alfa will need some work doing at some point, but until then, join in with the banter.

The 'box on this 147 is slacker than a student at the mention of work. Bizarrely, despite the stick being mega-waggly, it's quite slick to use... Work that one out.

Not an Alfa, but my Golf is in for its MoT and air-con regass at the moment. And because I've put a gazillion miles on the car in the last year, some suspension bits have worn out. I see expense in my future!

Now now, ladies... No fighting in front of the newbies.