I took my Alfa 156 for its second service today and I was given an old 156 as a courtesy car.  The car (see photo below) has 146,000 miles on it but it's near perfect! The leather interior has not worn, there are no rattles or squeaks, the 2 litre twin-spark engine is smooth and quiet and strong, in fact I kept looking at the mileometer and couldn't believe that the car has covered such a stratospheric mileage. And the bodywork, while having the awful pearlescent paint on it, looks perfect too (I wish I could say the same about my rusting Mercedes!). At 10 years old and with that mileage the car must be worth well below ?1000 which must make it an absolute bargain. I don't know if it's a case of all 156 being so good or that this has been well looked after by the garage but whatever the reason I seem to be on a winner as I have a 156 and it's being maintained by this garage  (Veloces of London - there's a bit of free advertising for them)

I got a good friend of mine to buy an Italian car. He bought a 2003 model facelift 156 2.0 JTS. I used to look after it and it was a cracking car. The front suspension is fun, changing top and bottom arms! Used to fail a fair few on the arms at M.O.T time. He sold it on after 2 years and always compares it to other cars for character, performance, quick rack and the price they fetch, let alone cry as it was the best car he's ever had. He now has a Punto 1.2 elx as baby forces sale!

Cambelt and variator valve needs to be checked and listened for.

I did a couple of cambelt snap- jobs on a 147 and a 156. 147 was fine, but 156 used to apprantley burn oil. I suspect the bores must of been wearing oval as opposed to bent rods. Cylinder head rebuild wasn't cheap as any valve which had shown signs of contact to piston was changed. I had been told that any valve which had made contact, but looked ok should be changed as a few people had experienced the head of the valve drop into the combustion chamber after a few weeks of running.