New Alfa Romeo Car Reviews
New Alfa Romeo 159 JTD Q-Tronic Range Car Review

AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE

Diesel cars with decent automatic gearboxes aren’t as thick on the ground as you might think. The Alfa 159 Q-Tronic remains one of the leading lights. Andy Enright reports…

Convergence. It’s happening all over the automotive business. The gulf between the best and the worst narrows every year and the public know it. There’s an impression that it’s impossible to buy a bad car these days and in certain respects that’s true. One component that is often overlooked is the automatic gearbox. The difference between a bog standard slush-box and the smartest intelligent automatics is enormous. The Q-Tronic system fitted to this Alfa Romeo 159 JTD diesel is part of the MENSA set.

But then that’s no less than you’d expect from Alfa Romeo, a company that is leveraging a newfound confidence built on solid sales figures. The launch of cars like the Brera and the 8C show that the good times are coming back but they need to be funded by mass market cars like this 159, a model that makes the numbers but retains an element of exotica about it.

The 159 JTD diesels you probably already know about. Short version? There’s a 150bhp 1.9-litre Multijet JTD unit while the range-topping oil-burner is the 2.4-litre 210bhp Multijet JTD. Both are standout performers. What we’re interested in here is the bit that marshals that power, the clever Q-Tronic gearbox. This allows the car to be driven in automatic mode with all the functions typical of an automatic transmission (parking, reverse, neutral and drive) or in sequential mode by simply moving the gear selector. The only gripe is that in order to change up, you push the gear lever forwards. It should instead be pulled back to match the car’s momentum and vice versa when braking, tapping the lever forward to change down. So it’s not perfect.

The auto mode is agreeably smooth but the sequential mode is novel in that the Q-Tronic system doesn’t force gear shifts at high speeds, the change being made when the driver wishes. The 2.4-litre model also offers a Sport/Winter function that allows the driver to choose between two operating modes (Sport and Winter) in addition to the default Comfort setting. In Sport mode, the gear shifts are set at higher engine speeds for a more sporty performance. While Winter mode ensures maximum grip when the road surface is particularly hazardous, for example when the roads are snow-covered.

The 159 has grown in virtually every dimension compared to the 156, but it’s still a very sharp piece of styling. Having watched one appear in my rear-view at the Nurburgring, I can assure you this vehicle has more overtaking presence than almost any BMW, the gimlet-eyed headlamps and razor-sharp front grille looking rather intimidating. The rear end is genuinely tricky to differentiate from the 156 at first glance, but the side view shows sharper creasing and swage lines and a longer front end. As cohesive a piece of penmanship as the 156 was, the 159 is a better balanced car and vies with the Lexus IS as the best looking executive saloon.

The architecture of the 159’s cabin is perhaps a little disappointing, offering an evolution of the 156’s fascia which looked great in ’98 but which now looks a little dated compared to the more imaginative designs out there. Build quality seems better than before and rear legroom and headroom have both improved, although you’d opt for a Saab or Volvo if this was a priority. The boot, however, is way bigger than you’d have any right to expect and the folding rear seats endow the 159 with an admirable load carrying ability.

The Q-Tronic gearbox tacks another £1,450 onto the cost of an Alfa 159 JTD and, in all, there are four models to choose from. Both Lusso and Ti models are offered in both the saloon and Sportwagon bodystyles. Lusso trim gets you extras like leather, rain sensing wipers, automatic headlamps, rear parking sensors and 17-inch alloy wheels. Compared to typical Teutonic rivals, the spec list on both cars is relatively generous.

Value is not an easy concept to pin down with the 159. The trouble is that its styling tends to steamroller all other concerns. Your neighbours may label you a narcissist as they mutter jealously and lumber away in their more aesthetically-challenged wheels. It’s certainly true that there will be any number of people who will buy the 159 Sportwagon on the basis of a picture they’ve seen in the pages of a glossy magazine. Some cars have that ‘want one’ factor by the barrow load. The 159 Sportwagon has room in the back for a whole lot more of it than most but we’d make the case for this car if it had a face like a sack of spanners.

The quandary that many vehicle designers had with building decent automatic diesel cars is that the big benefit of a diesel engine – its fuel economy – is in part frittered away by the relative wastefulness of driving a torque converter. In an ideal world, the answer would be a clever sequential manual system or a continuously-variable transmission but these often don’t tally very well with a diesel’s power delivery. Alfa’s Q-Tronic models aren’t as economical as their manual counterparts but they’ll still go a long way on a gallon of fuel – around 43 miles in the case of the 1.9-litre saloon.

The old story about Alfas doubling in residual value when you filled them with fuel merely sounds ironic these days when residual values hover at around 40 per cent for the 1.9 JTD. This is still some way behind the likes of Lexus and Jaguar and even further away from BMW and Audi but the trend is upwards. Insurance? The 1.9-litre cars are rated at Group 12 and the 2.4-litre models Group 14 which again reflects the fact that these cars are bought by younger drivers with a propensity for driving.

The delightful thing about the Alfa Romeo JTD Q-Tronic is that it doesn’t make you work too hard. Although it’s the automotive equivalent of a prom queen there’s very little that’s high maintenance about it. The driver aids are easy to figure out, the controls intuitive and the gearbox seems to work in concert with, rather than in opposition to, you. At first it seems like a dream date.

There are some caveats. Running costs are on a par with more expensive German rivals and the gearbox does dull the edge of the performance and economy figures of these excellent Multijet diesels. That’s a small grumble given its versatility and sheer ease of use. If I needed a 159 to commute to work in, there’s no way I’d look further than a Q-Tronic. It’s what lazy left legs are made for.

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