"My Ride" Wall Street Journal Column

[KevAndAndi]

I think that many on this forum would agree with John D. Fox, a senior scientist at Stanford’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (and owner of two Alfas and one Fiat), when he says the following about Italian cars of a certain age:

Italian cars in the early 1970s got a reputation for poor quality, but it’s not warranted. These cars were very sophisticated for their time, and they required knowledge and competence from the people servicing them. This competence was not commonly found at a corner gas station. It wasn’t that the cars were pieces of junk. People just didn’t know how to take care of them.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-italian ... 1450799250

[bradartigue]

He's mostly wrong. There's no other way to say it. The only constant in Italian car production between 1900 and 2016 has been poor quality control. It peaked in the late 1970s, leading to the steady demise of FIAT, Alfa Romeo, and Maserati in the most important global market, the USA. The only reason Ferrari survived is they were relatively rare to begin with and had low mileage. FIATs were driven by us regular folks, and daily use resulted in the cars simply breaking when they shouldn't.

Certainly no common corner filling station had mechanics competent in FIATs, but this could be argued about foreign cars in general at the time. I remember there were mechanics who had no metric tools in the 1980's - they literally could not work on foreign cars. However, FIAT had an enormous dealer network in the early 1970s, which dwindled down to very few by the early 1980s. What most people found was that no one could work on their cars, from the dealer to the corner mechanic. The fact that the cars needed more service than owners expected AND that no one seemed to be able to work on them combined to a big problem.

On a part-by-part basis there weren't any real issues, but the assembly was oftentimes crappy and hasty. Improperly torqued heads, failure to complete the delivery inspection, low quality electrical components, poorly engineered solutions for DOT and EPA requirements, you name it.

My take is pretty simple: Spiders are beautiful cars and well engineered, but they were assembled by a company who didn't put quality first or second. A company that did not value the owner experience and fought with their dealers instead of cooperating with them. Certainly they were not "pieces of junk" but if they weren't good looking there would have been no preservation effort at all.

[DUCeditor]

My experience makes me fall between these two points of view.

I think Fiat's "mistake" was selling cars here that were designed for Europe.

Not just European roads, but European drivers. -People who both understood the need for careful maintenance and who were willing to perform it. Unlike Americans who expected to simply turn the key, drive, add fuel and have an occasional oil change done.

My first car was a Fiat 1500. I'd bought it used and did just what I said above. I drove it until something broke.

Yes, I did the same to my Honda Motorcycles. And paid a similar price. Sorry, I just knew no better. That was the way I saw cars (and bikes) treated, and having bought mine used didn't even have an owner's manual or get the benefit of a pre-delivery session.

I had completely bought into the "Fix It Again Tony" thing but was set right by a friend from Germany. He loved Fiats! And he said his friends back in Germany did too. Then he went on to explain to me in some detail what a well engineered car requires from its owner.

By the time I got my 2nd Fiat -- my `77 Spider, bought used in `88 -- I knew better. No, not that I had myself become a mechanic. But I knew enough to make sure I had one! One who had come to the States from Rome, Italy, and who knew these cars like the back of hand.

That `77 is still running beautifully and reasonably reliably. (Apart form little electrical gremlins generally brought on my nearly 40 years of corrosion of its connectors.)

But on the other side of the argument there were those terrible dealers. And things like cars being left exposed to weeks or even months of sea air. Things that never should have been allowed by the parent company.

-don

[RRoller123]

In New England, one of the most important problems was that the FIAT line was very often a subset of a larger dealership (ex: I bought my '79 X1/9 new from Goss Lincoln-Mercury in Portsmouth, NH) and they were treated as second class brands by the Sales and Service people. There seemed to be little interest in success, and that proved self fulfilling in the end.

[bradartigue]

I've never believed in the whole "Europeans know how to maintain cars" line; from what I've seen and lived they treat cars as anyone would. They had the same problems in Europe with the cars; the difference is, they didn't sell many of these in Europe and they were expensive cars - luxury items for the upper middle class. The target market was the USA, where far more people could afford to buy them. FIAT, like many manufacturers of the time, considered the owner relationship complete at the point of sale. Not too much unlike their mentality today if you believe the feedback from the owners of the current cars.

What the article fails to mention is the technical evolution of the Alfa and FIAT Spider stopped in about 1968. Minor cosmetic enhancements and engine changes occurred; however, these were still hand-assembled cars based on technology of the early 1960s. Cars that had a routine of service equivalent to the mid 1960s, not the mid 1970s and certainly not the 1980s. Relative to all competing cars in 1970 they were advanced; by 1980 they were antiques. Consider the absurdity that they were even produced after 1974...a testament to how poorly managed both companies were (they converged and diverged at some point as well) they continued to produce these cars well beyond their profitable lifespan.

You can take pride in some things though - the quality control issue was at least shared across the Italian marques. Your Spider's temperamental temperature control gauge and oddball ventilation controls are shared with the finest Ferraris, and built right along side of them. It took about as long to build a Spider as it did a 308, and both were fitted with the same electronics, wiring, carpet, vinyl, "wood", and other cheap parts. We didn't get the fine, oil-burning, $5,000 tune up Ferrari engines, thank god, because you can enjoy a 124 Spider year round and tune it in your own garage.

I consider us lucky, and Alfa Spider owners as well, for any sane business to have made these cars as long as they did, and never really change anything, means we have lots of parts out there to keep them running for a long time. I just don't credit the manufacturer with much. I credit the enthusiasts and ONLY the enthusiasts.

[Squidders]

I can't comment on the US dealership now or in the past, however given the sheer volume of all models of FIAT's sold around the world and Spiders sold mainly in the US, and their engineering advances compared to other marques in its category. I'm not sure it was or is just the parent company to blame for poor customer service maintenance and repairs. Rust issues, as a result of poor quality steel and treatment, yes, however climate also plays a part in that regard,especially given that a lot of cars early on were not pre-treated to for anti corrosion.

Given that most Spiders are at least 30 years old and lost more between 35 - 50 years and still running, albeit with some electrical issues and other peculiarities, these cars are still running today. Can't say the same for some other car manufacturers out there.

[johndemar]

I agree with Brad in this sense, the car does have beautiful lines, and that's what makes it unique.
I doubt I would have kept the car for this long if it didn't look better than most other cars on the road.
Categories such as performance, driving comfort, maintenance, and reliability are less than a lot of other choices out there, but i choose not to drive an appliance. And the car is relatively easy to work on. All of my mechanical skills, such as they are, have come from tinkering in the garage with it over the years. It's a kind of therapy!

If I were forced to use the spider for my daily driver my opinion would most likely be different, but that hasn't been the case in 36 years now.