I ticked over 60,000 miles in my Alfa Romeo Giulia this past week. It's been four years and 41,000 miles since I bought it and it seems like a good time provide a "long term test" update on what I think of the car.
A lot of what I liked about the car when I first bought it is still true now. It's fun to take the car out on some twisty back roads and play with the quick acceleration and nimble steering. The car sounds great when you're winding it up. The "manual mode" on the automatic transmission is even really responsive and fun to play with. Obviously it's not quite the same experience as a true stick shift, but the pros of having an automatic for a daily driver outweigh the cons of missing that three-pedal action, at least for me.
One of the fun things about the car which I'm surprised hasn't faded yet is how unique it is. Even though the Giulia has been on the market in the US for seven years, you don't see a ton of them on the road. I still have people come up to me at gas stations, coffee shops, etc. that complement the car and ask me how it is to drive. Some people have never even heard of Alfa Romeo at all and think my car is way more expensive than it is. Given all the BMWs and Audis I see around that, in M or RS trim, surely cost twice what my car did, it's funny that my car is the one turning heads. I guess if you look at the sales numbers, I think there have only been around 50k Giulias sold in the US so far, which is about how many BMW 3 series were sold in 2021 alone.
The biggest thing I was worried about when I bought my car was reliability, because most of the people I spoke to who had heard of Alfa Romeo knew their poor reputation in that area. It hasn't been totally perfect - I had the sunroof get stuck in the open position and the whole sunroof had to be replaced (covered under warranty). But, cars in this segment tend not to be stellar when it comes to reliability anyway, and so far the Alfa has been on par with my BMW 330 I had before this or the Mercedes C320 before that.
Another downside I've noticed having owned the car longer is that the back seats are quite small for a four-door car. The rear leg room on the passenger side is kind of tight, but the rear leg room on the driver's side is really a squeeze even for my 4'5" daughter. I pretty much never have to take multiple adults anywhere in my car so it hasn't been a big deal so far, but I could see it becoming more of an issue down the road as my daughter and her friends get taller.
The biggest downside of the Giulia to me is where it falls short of being a true performance car. The same kinds of issues I discovered on the autocross track also show up if you really start pushing the car hard on back roads. The brakes don't inspire confidence, especially as they get hotter and hotter. The suspension can react in strange ways to bumps, creating kind of a wiggle in the back end that makes the car feel unsettled. And the steering, although very responsive, doesn't transmit much feel for the road or the tires' level of grip.
In the end, although the Alfa Romeo Giulia isn't perfect, I'm still glad I bought it instead of any of the alternatives in my price range. It's neat having a car that you don't see very many of on the road. And as long as you aren't using it for motorsports or really going ten tenths on the back roads, it's a fun car to drive. Hopefully it'll keep treating me well until I can get my next dream car.
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