When did BMW’s M division stop being the benchmark for makers of fast sedans? Some might point to the launch of the X5 M, some might point fingers at the CLAR chassis and its serious mass, some might cite the unnecessary stiffness of the X3 M, but I reckon the launch of the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio is as good a marker as any.
I still remember the frenzy when this mesmerizing Italian super sedan debuted. Huge output, huge speed, a bit of Ferrari DNA, all in a credible competitor to the BMW M3. Road testers adored it, enthusiasts craned their necks when they saw one in traffic, and everyone declared it the compact sports sedan to beat.
Unfortunately, sales never really took off, which means this 505-horsepower super sedan isn’t quite as common a sight as any of its German competitors. However, thanks to biblical depreciation, you can now get an example of this Italian super sedan for the price of a new Honda Civic. That’s not a lot of scratch for something this quick.
What Are We Looking At?
Through the 2000s, Alfa Romeo was in a bit of a slump. Sure, the Brera was cool and the 8C was an interesting low-volume coupe, but compared to the halcyon days of the ’60s and ’70s, there weren’t a ton of all-Alfa vehicles on sale. The 159 and Brera were technically built on a platform co-developed with GM, which GM then abandoned. Then, in 2013, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne gave Alfa the mandate it needed: Develop a no-nonsense front-engined rear-wheel-drive all-Alfa sports sedan. It was time for the legendary brand to truly compete with BMW again. Marchionne tapped into the talent of Former Ferrari technical director Phillipe Krief to get the job done, and Krief assembled a dream team and got to work.
It started with a clean-sheet architecture with multi-link front and rear suspension, designed for an even front-to-rear weight distribution and using aluminum in the strut towers, the doors, and front fenders to keep the weight reasonable. From there, Alfa Romeo went with fast steering, gorgeous sheetmetal, and suspension that breathed with the road to produce a proper 3-Series competitor, the Giulia. However, in an age when every luxury automaker had a small performance sedan, Alfa Romeo also needed to take on the BMW M3. It dusted off the Quadrifoglio nameplate from previous high-performance models, and went a bit nuts.
At the heart of the Giulia Quadrifoglio sits a 90-degree V6 derived from the Ferrari F154 V8. While it isn’t just that engine with two fewer cylinders, the 2.9-liter 690T V6 shares a bore, stroke, bank angle, and chief engineer as the V8 in the Ferrari Portofino. Perhaps thanks to borrowing some lesson plans, the V6 kicks out a whopping 505 horsepower and 443 lb.-ft. of torque, and hitched to the mandatory-for-America ZF eight-speed automatic transmission, that’s good enough to get the Giulia Quadrifoglio from zero-to-60 mph in 3.6 seconds in Car And Driver testing, and onto a top speed of 191 MPH.
However, this hot Alfa doesn’t just offer more firepower than an F80 M3, it also holds up in the bends. There’s a bumpy road mode for the adaptive dampers, a torque-vectoring differential, and the most egregious set of tires likely ever fitted to a production sedan. They’re technically street-legal, but these special Pirellis have a treadwear rating of 60. Yeah, 60. The result? When Car And Driver pitted the Giulia Quadrifoglio against the BMW M3, Mercedes-AMG C 63 S, and Cadillac ATS-V, the Alfa won, aided by its spectacular chassis. As per the magazine:
With the exception of Porsche’s 911 and 718 Boxster/Cayman, there is no other 1.00-g chassis that rides as well as the Giulia’s. The electronic dampers provide transcendent wheel control and somehow round off bumps that would ring through the BMW and Mercedes. Even in the hardest of the three modes, the suspension remains civil in a way that eludes the German sedans.
Next to the competition, the Giulia’s steering is on the light side, but that lightness and the chassis’ agility helped it ace the slalom test and made the Giulia the go-to car for leading the group through unfamiliar corners. It’s not until you step into the other cars that you fully appreciate how well the Giulia changes direction.
The result is one of the best sports sedans of the 21st century from a driver’s perspective. Sure, the interior might not be as upscale as in a Mercedes-AMG C63 S, and you can’t get it with a manual transmission like you could with a BMW M3, but giant column-mounted paddle shifters aren’t a bad consolation prize, and your passengers will be fine without excessive amounts of ambient lighting.
How Much Are We Talking?
Let’s start with a benchmark: A mid-range Civic Sport Hybrid sedan stickers for $30,100 including freight. Now that the Giulia Quadrifoglio is a whopping nine years old, you can easily get this once-$73,595 sedan for Civic money. Check out this 2017 model that failed to meet reserve on Cars & Bids but sold after the auction for $28,000. With 75,500 miles on the clock, it’s not a particularly high-mileage example, and it has a clean Carfax. Sure, minor aftermarket modifications like H&R lowering springs, Apex wheels, the wrapped roof, and what appears to be light tint on the taillights may have affected resale value, but this is a serious amount of car for the money.
However, if you’re looking for something less perfect, you may be able to score a Giulia Quadrifoglio for even less. This 2017 model sold on Cars & Bids a few months ago for $23,000 with 84,000 miles on the clock. The catch? Well, there are two. The first is that this example is equipped with carbon ceramic brakes, which should last a long time but are seriously expensive to replace if a disc wears out or gets damaged. The second is a minor hit on the Carfax from 2022. Still, if neither of those things are a big deal to you, $23,000 for a Giulia Quadrifoglio is a steal.
Don’t want to wait for an auction to pop up? This grey 2017 Giulia Quadrifoglio is up for sale in Georgia for $29,000 with a reasonable 55,037 miles on the clock. It’s not a mega-spec example, but the standard seats are better than the carbon-backed Sparcos if you have kids who may kick the seatbacks, and grey-on-black is a quiet spec for those who want to stay under the radar. It’s still a lot of car for $29,000,
What Can Go Wrong On A Giulia Quadrifoglio?
Now, the common thread for most of the cheapest Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio examples on the market is that they’re 2017 models, and those came with some teething issues. While a litany of dealer-installed software updates has significantly reduced the instances of ghosts in the machine, there are still some common problems you should know about. The first is that these cars are hard on batteries, and a discharged battery can lead to all sorts of error messages. Could early software iterations, a discharged battery, and poorly seated e-throttle connectors have contributed to Car And Driver‘s legendarily abysmal experience with its Giulia Quadrifoglio long-term test car? It’s possible. Strangely, though, most owners report that aside from keeping a code reader handy to clear occasional CANBUS communication errors, their cars have largely been mechanically solid.
That being said, don’t equate relative mechanical decency with inexpensive running costs. Aside from the tires, which are made of mozzarella and have the lifespan of dragonflies, the most common absurd expense with these cars is that it’s absolutely heinously awful to change the serpentine belt, beyond what even high-performance German sports sedan masochists would consider sane. Official procedure involves draining some of the coolant and removing the front wheels, among other things. It’s a roughly ten-hour service that’s due every four years, so you’ll need to budget some serious money for this piece of scheduled maintenance.
Beyond that, a pair of iron front brake discs will run you around $1,600, spark plugs cost nearly $40 each and have a 60,000-mile service interval, and you’ll want to be careful around steep driveway entrances and parking blocks to avoid damaging the active front splitter. Still, it’s not like a modern BMW M car is much cheaper to run, but you wouldn’t want to go into this genre of car with no research done.
Should You Buy A Giulia Quadrifoglio For The Price Of A New Civic?
The Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio is an utterly bewitching car, yet I’d hesitate to recommend one for new Civic money. Would I buy one with my own money? Sure, but I’m an optimistic idiot. That being said, if you’re also an optimist with solid diagnostic skills and the ability to differentiate between what’s a real problem and what’s just a ghost in the machine, and you have the money to keep ahead on maintenance, a used Giulia Quadrifoglio can be a lot of fun.
Top graphic credit: Cars & Bids
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Oh, it’s an automatic?
I’ll take the civic.
IMHO not only is the Civic more reliable it is also better looking
Get out!
“aside from keeping a code reader handy to clear occasional CANBUS communication errors, their cars have largely been mechanically solid.”
I should not have to keep a code reader handy on a late 2010s family sedan…
Looked at one in 2019 and bought a 2010 ISF instead. Not a single regret…
Right! And to prove the point my code reader lives under the seat in my 2012 jeep wrangler.
These cars are soooooo tempting. Even the regular (non-Quad) models are fabulous in the tight corners. If they had brought a manual to the US there is a good chance I would own one right now but I just couldn’t go two pedal yet.
And then every month, you get to pay the price of that new Civic again.
First of all, there is a lot of FUD around the serpentine belt. It lasts longer than 4 yrs/36k unless you live in the desert. Many dealers recommend not changing it after inspection.
The cost can be 1200-2000$ to change it. For an every several year thing, thats fairly reasonable compared to any high performance car that’ll put up a 7:32 ring laptime.
Otherwise, the only maintenance you need to do is oil changes. Its a reliable machine compared to any BMW/ porsche of yore, not to mention recent GM and Toyota motors that will spontaneous fail.
I see BMW M cars every day, I see an Alfa sedan maybe every month. I see more Maseratis than I do Alfas.
I’m not sure BMW gave up their “fast sedan sales crown” just yet.
They definitely didn’t give up the sales crown, but they gave up the “best driving” crown. The Giulia and Cadillac V/Blackwings have been superior drivers cars.
After I got rid of my lemon Giulia, I found I missed it. Gave some thought to getting a used one where I could check the records for unscheduled maintenance. But,,,
Hi it’s me, a crazy person. I bought one (2017 QV). I did the thing. I bought it. Yes, did a failed fuel pump make my CEL come on within a month of ownership and are the electrics a little quirky (on start up it sometimes briefly says it isn’t in park when it is)? YES.
BUT. This is one of the greats. I’ve had the blessing to drive quite a few cars and holy cow. It’s comfy to daily and fizzes with energy at idle. It shifts almost as fast as a dual clutch and, when you’re heavy in the throttle, the upshifts sound like gunshots, the clap ricocheting off the walls of the tunnel you’ve found yourself blowing through. Even now, at 11:30pm at night I’m itching to wake up and drive it. It hasn’t gotten old. The steering is incredibly direct and makes the car very easy to place. It’s the only non-manual car I’ve truly loved and it really does live up to the hype.
And although expensive to maintain compared to the civic, with all of the major mechanical problems of the contemporary German counterparts, it’s actually comparatively reliable. Comparatively.
Is 67% depreciation over 8 years actually that biblical? Not saying it’s good, but for a slightly finicky car with niche appeal and a dealer base that’s as likely to vanish overnight as a memecoin, that doesn’t seem terrible.
I’m guessing 15 years is closer to the mark where I could justify one, but really, something to fill the gap between the base engine and this would be ideal.
Naming the primary reasons for the depreciation isn’t much of a justification. It is like saying, “We would have won the game had we played better defence and scored more points.”
I mean, a rudimentary look suggests typical 5 year depreciation in the 55% range, with some luxury brands averaging in the mid-60’s, so for the Quadrifoglio to drop 67% in 8 years in spite of everything stacked against it isn’t so bad.
True, it isn’t too far over the mid-60s average for the worst set of comps, but that set of comps is what it is because they share similar issues.
It still puts the Q as one of the worst of the worst. Saying it could have been even worse yet is cold comfort at that point.
Mid-60’s for average luxury brands over 5 years vs 67% over 8 years though
Sure, but still…
The thing is, the Q is genuinely an amazingly attractive package. I haven’t driven one, but a friend who owns and has restored Alfas drove one for a week on a trip to Italy and said it was amazing. Even he doesn’t want to deal with the issues of a modern one.
What makes the depreciation feel especially egregious is how desirable the car is in every way, except for its running costs. A BMW 540 losing 65% of its value isn’t as surprising since they are just fairly basic cars that happen to be a lot more expensive to keep on the road. The Alfa is a rare, beautiful gem that has a massive flaw. If it didn’t have that flaw, there would be no reason it would depreciate more than other cars known for being great performers. Even common stuff like the Hellcat have only lost 10-20% over seven years.
You just need to work real hard to frame the Qs depreciation as anything other than fairly terrible.
It’s no Maserati Ghibli. The line between normal bad depreciation and “biblical” lies somewhere between it and the Alfa (obviously subjective, but I think much closer to the Maserati).
The Maserati is truly the bottom of the barrel. Nearly Fisker level. It has all the Italian performance model issues without the appeal of the Alfa. Neither could be considered anything but terrible in my book. However, I’ve been able to be car payment-free for over twenty years while driving newish cars (besides the toys), largely due to avoiding depreciation.
I love seeing these on the road and being glad that someone else is taking on the financial pain and suffering of owning one.
You could likely spend the cost of a Civic keeping that hot hooptie humming ……
Stop tempting me to stretch the mental budget I carved for a nicely optioned used Ti to fit a QV…
I know it’s a bad choice, but I want to make the smarter bad choice, and I already have one Italian car under my belt. I figured the likelihood I can keep one of the 2 drivable is high enough… and my fiancee has a Camry if worst comes to worst.
FWIW, Ti+performance suspension/LSD, and somewhere between 50k-90k is my desired car… I like to have enough mileage that if it’s gonna have early problems, they’ve been ironed by the previous owner and also enough that I know it hasn’t just sat.
Sport Ti with the LSD and a few aftermarket tweaks like the Squadra Tuning flash to activate Race Mode and actually let you turn off stability control for autocross is probably the move. The standard models seem far less fiddly than the Quadrifoglios.
Absolutely my thought process. You can get cars optioned as such for under $20k if you look. The 2.0 has also become a corporate motor of sorts, so parts shouldn’t be too bad to get long term.
I’m forcing myself to wait until the exact right car shows up in the right place. I’m in no rush and waiting will only bring newer ones into my desired range.
I would love one of those too, and that’s the spec to get! Keep those eyes open friend and happy hunting!
We had a Stelvio 2.0 for 3 years and put > 60k miles on it. Only issue we ever had was a bad evap valve. It didn’t cause any issue driving, just lit up the CEL. It was fixed under warranty.
Awesome handling, even for an SUV. And it was surprisingly quick. Funny thing, a lot of the fluids called for were MOPAR parts.
Only reason we traded it(for a Hyundai Palisade) was we had another kid, and that was 1 too many to fit all of their crap in when we road tripped. Otherwise, we’d still be hooning it!
A good friend owns an old Alfa GTV that he has lovingly rebuilt to a decently high standard. It isn’t the first Alfa he has restored, and he is more knowledgeable about Alfa than anybody I know is about any brand. He had talked about getting one when they first came out, but he was retiring at the same time, so he decided to wait and see how it went. He is now happy he passed and has zero interest in one, even with the massive depreciation.
They are amazing to drive, but man, what a cost. I think if I were going to opt for a new Alfa, I would splurge on the 4C. It’s a much more interesting car, and since it’s a toy, I wouldn’t need to worry about putting on enough miles to make maintenance a nightmare.
Where in the world do you buy your parts!?!
“a pair of iron front brake discs will run you around $1,600″
I found a full front/rear set with Drilled and Slotted rotors included for only $433.
“spark plugs cost nearly $40 each and have a 60,000-mile service interval”
OE NGK Laser Platinum plugs are only $19/ea.
I’d assume those are OEM prices.
One takes an out of warranty car to the dealership at their own peril.
Though I would LOVE to know the details of how they made a *serpentine belt* require 10hrs and coolant draining to change. WTF?!?!
Those Ferrari based engines…
Every time I come across one of these in the wild, I come home and check the prices. They sound good, they look good. Then I remember what I am signing up for.
I want to like these so much but they’re just ridiculous. Didja know the SERPENTINE belt (not timing – the belt that spins the waterpump, alternator, etc) has to be changed every 36k miles? It’s so involved that it can cost $3k depending on where you live. Apparently, if it fails, it can cause all kinds of expensive carnage.
No. Thanks.
I love me some depreciated Euro cars but FFS.
Pro: It’s philosophically the closest you can get to a Ferrari compact sport sedan.
Con: It’s philosophically the closest you can get to a Ferrari compact sport sedan.
Lancia Thema 8.32: “what about me?”
Closest “modern daily driver” type car at least!
I’ve had a 360 for 14 years. 🙂
For the pain, I’d much rather have an actual Ferrari that isn’t my daily.
There’s a few owner forums where they found you can swap the belt yourself without any special tools, and without taking apart the entire front end. You still have to remove the intercoolers and a bunch of hoses, but it’s not quite the ordeal people make it out to be.
The Alfa mechanic who laid it all out said “I had to post this. There’s too many stupid techs working on these cars and giving customers false information. It’s starting to cause problems for the brand again.”
Theres been only one reported failure of a belt, and that was due to bad tension or debris getting in there. Failing of the belt in general will not cause catastrophic damage. In general, most people inspect the belt every once in awhile and leave it alone if it’s in good condition.
Also, spending 2k or less every 4 YEARS is well within reason for a high performance car of this capability. You can also DIY it for far less if you want. Go talk about rod bearings on a BMW or coolant lines on a Porsche 911..
These particular ones should be cheap because, even though Alfa had a great color palette (specifically, a green I wish my car came in, not least of which because it would make me stop looking at my “you can have any color you want as long as it’s boring black” interior and wondering about having it completely redone), these bozos got white and gray. And it’s not like these are the kind of car one buys in an emergency and dealers had a bunch of these stocked on the lot in “inoffensive” non-colors or that resale should have been a concern when Alfas drop in value like a forgetful skydiver with a missing parachute, these cars are “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” and one would think they would be ordered to exact specification.
From LXXVIV Denarii to just few Lepton.
You can also walk for free
Hah! Well I certainly love mine, although I purposefully shopped for one post 2020 and found one where plainly the car just wasn’t what the original owner wanted (well thats what I assume after having it for couple years now and it only having 5k miles on it when I got it – didn’t have new Civic depreciation at that point but still significant).
The CEL thing is real and any model beyond 2018 has the whole security gateway BS so you have to either wireup a bypass for that *or* use something officially sanctioned to even clear codes, but truly the vast majority of the CEL stuff with this car is 100% the fault of the battery. The one it comes with is terrible and this care is *really* sensitive to that battery voltage level or you WILL start getting a code.
I’ve loved mine and its a blast to drive but it does take knowing what you’re getting into – it is *not* a Toyota. 🙂 (for me this is my fifth Alfa in the past 40 years so there have been no surprises)
This has the engine that SHOULD have went into the 4C.
Nah, the engine wasn’t the problem with the 4C, the transmission was.
The early press videos had it sounding like a 3cyl tractor. They fixed it, but man, when I think sports car, I think a 25hp diesel thing to remove poop from a barn.
This car has the same problem. If Alfa offered the Giulia with a stick, I have no doubt I would own one despite my loathing of sedans. But it would be a 2.0T, not this nonsense.
This specifically is a car, along with the non-Quadwhatever version, which part of me wants very much. I keep telling myself there’s no reason I shouldn’t at least go take a test drive. But there’s a much larger part of me which knows that’s (likely) a very bad idea. Reliability is too important to me, to the detriment of the interestingness of my cars.
I know this is hearsay, but a friend of mine told me he test drove a Giulia with 15 miles on the odo, and the CEL came on during his test drive. I mean, that’s embarrassing.
Back in 2017 I thought about orderingan Audi SQ5. Went to the dealer and test drove a new one. Didn’t make it 1 mile till the entire dash went black. No radio, no gauges, nothing. Salesman had no clue, but we pulled over and restarted the car, but still no go. That sealed the deal for me not getting one.
Made a wiser choice and bought a new Nitrous Blue Ford Focus RS!
“But don’t” is missing from the title
Can you? Absolutely.
Should you? Absolutely not.