Talk:Alfa Romeo 147

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[edit] Primetime

Some comments about my second attempt- 1. The "less prestige than them" sentence, apart from being horribly worded, isn't particularly accurate (which rivals? you only appear to have handpicked three prestigious rivals, ignoring the fact that this car is also marketed at the Focus/Megane/Golf sector). Alfa is hardly a marque lacking in prestige. 2. "because it is a base nameplate (model line)" What does that have to do with anything? 3. "and because few people in Europe opt for the V-6-powered GTA. " uh, i guess. this part is a bit odd and pointless to include. --Jamieli 19:14, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

1. The car isn't marketed at the Focus/Megane/Golf niche because it overprices them. Fiat competes with those cars, not Alfa Romeo. You might say that the high-performance versions of some of those nameplates do compete with the 147 GTA, though. Alfa Romeo has prestige with regards to performance, not prestige in quality. BMW has both, and Mercedes has quality prestige (because they are more reliable and durable). Thus, I guess we could eliminate references both to the Focus/Megane/Golf niche as well as the reference to Mercedes. It most-closely competes with Audi and BMW.

2. The more complicated the model offered (e.g., a six-cylinder versus a four, an automatic transmission versus a manual) the more parts there are that may break. For example, twelve-cylinder luxury cars are by far the least-reliable cars ever designed.

3. Same reason as above.

I think the greatest strength of Wikipedia is that it provides more in-depth knowledge than other reference sources. When reading a review in an automotive magazine or on a car-buying website, such information as seen above is included and read carefully by patrons.

Nonetheless, I think your most-recent changes form a bearable compromise except for the elimination of the reference to the reason why the 147 has less problems. Thus, I will re-instate that part. Primetime 19:54, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

1.The first two reviews I could find on the web, here and here list the car's rivals as Focus/Golf/C4 and C4/Stilo/Civic/Megane etc. The first magazine roadtest I found (Top Gear magazine, June 2001) lists the 147's "Rivals" as Focus/Golf/Astra.

2.That's not really true nowadays, particularly in Europe, anyway (the latest Top Gear survey had the Honda S2000 at the top, two Lexuses behind it, a Jaguar in 12th (out of 159) and seven subcompacts in the bottom 10), but even if it was...it's neither here nor there. It's sort of like saying "the amount of deaths of private recreational pilots is relatively low, but that's because they mostly use small propeller-powered Cessnas and not supersonic fighter jets."

4.Yes, that information would be included in a magazine or website review. But this isn't a review, this is an encyclopedia article. All of your edits to this page are unsourced and unsubstantiated, which is supposed to be not allowed at all on Wikipedia. There are many editors out there who if they came upon this page would justifiably remove all of it for that reason. --Jamieli 20:50, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

1. I'm not sure where you got the idea that Channel 4 or Fifth Gear are scripture, especially since the only thing all of those cars have in common is size. People who are considering a purchase of a Renault Megane will not simultaneously be considering a BMW 1-Series or a Alfa Romeo 147. Further, CAR Magazine does not consider the Volkswagen or the Ford to be players in this niche, either.

2. Given, the reliability or durability of a car is not determined solely by its complexity, but it is pretty much the sole determinant within a marque. Complexity has always been and still is a key factor in determining which cars are the most reliable, along with how long the car has been on the market (time for working out kinks that are discovered when a car breaks down), the company's budget for research and development, and workmanship (notoriously poor among Italian cars). The latest Consumer Reports surveys, which measure long-term as well as initial quality, confirm my views and show the complete opposite of what you say. When the US government instiuted stringent emissions controls (much more than were found in Europe at the time) in the mid 1970s reliability declined among automobiles sold here because automakers had to use more electronics to regulate the workings of the engine in addition to installing more mechanical regulators (e.g., catalytic converters, EGR valves).

4. I don't see how such an in-depth article on Killah Priest or the album Iron Flag is very encyclopedic, either. I also think it's pretty hypocritical for you to criticize me for not citing my sources, judging how you rarely cited your sources when editing the articles Wu-Tang Clan, Iron Flag, Killah Priest, etc. Nonetheless, I would encourage you to read my sources for the article: Autoexpress [1], [2],[3], [4], Parker's Used Car Prices [5], as well as the CAR Magazine "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" section found in the back of any issue. Primetime 21:31, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

1. They're not "scripture", they're just the first examples I found. How do you know that "noone who is considering a purchase of a Renault Megane will simultaneously be considering a BMW 1-Series or a Alfa Romeo 147"? Have you asked them all yourself? The 147 and many of that, uh, niche are roughly the same price (the 147 just lacks the base models of, say, the Focus or the Golf...the price of the 1.6 147 is almost identical to the equivalent 1.6 115 Zetec Focus and cheaper than the equivalent Golf 1.6 FSI, etc etc). The French marques give you more for the money but that's hardly going to rule them out as competitors entirely.

2. This isn't an American car, and this isn't the 1970s. A quick study of European customer satisfaction or reliability surveys (Which? magazine, What Car? magazine, Top Gear magazine) will show there is almost no correlation whatsoever between car size and reliability.

4. But there isn't any opinion in those articles. It's all facts that can be easily proven, or summarizations of facts that are obvious or well-known and that are established enough that noone is going to argue with them. Most of the Killah Priest stuff comes from interviews or the biography on his website, or is just well-known fact, the Wu-Tang stuff is almost all well-known fact or taken from interviews. I haven't cited the sources, no, but that's because I haven't been asked. If I am, I will but frankly, I dont think anyone will bother because they aren't contentious points that anyone is going to dispute (unlike your edits to the 147 article). There are a few "Many critics say..." sentences but they're all well-known, established consensus opinion that, again, noone who knows the topic is going to argue with. Someone may be unhappy that "View From Masada was poorly received" but noone who can remember the album's critical reception is going to disagree that it was. Someone may be unhappy that the second round of Wu-Tang solo project releases was received worse than the first, but noone is going to argue that that wasn't the case. The only things you edited in that fall into this undisputable category are the comment about the engine note and the reliability. But you seem to have sources anyway, so that's great: please edit them into the article appropriately.

By the way, I wasn't directly complaining about it. I don't frankly care, I think it's harmless. I've certainly made unsourced (or that comes from a source that technically "isn't reliable") edits to many other auto articles. I was just saying, your edits are dubious as regards official Wikipedia policy anyway, so don't get so defensive about it. --Jamieli 23:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, I've added citations for my sources. Although I don't think that the the Golf/Megane/Focus group are primary competitors to the 147, I wouldn't stop you if you added them to the list. However, I think it would look misleading putting them in the same place as the BMW 1-series and the Audi A3 because different types of people buy those cars. Primetime 00:14, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

The article states "the use of the V6 engine being quite unique in a car of its size" and then goes on to quote 2 other V6 engined cars of a similar size - corrected this 82.14.81.154 20:00, 23 September 2006 (UTC)therealbigjim

Also after stating that reliabilty is improved over older models, the article contains "(e.g., warning lights unnecessarily coming on and engine oil being burned even in brand-new engines)", with a citation which refers to an older model. This is not valid evidence of the point. This section also states "However, this is mostly because customers usually opt for manual transmissions and avoid the V-6 powered GTA" - a citation is needed here. Certainly most used 147's I see do have the semi-automatic transmission. I'm also not aware of any reliabilty problems from the V6 engine.

[edit] Steering

"However, light steering does help during parking manoeuvres because there are less turns lock-to-lock (degrees of turning the steering wheel until it cannot be turned any longer)"

This isn't really true. The steering is light because it is heavily power assisted, the number of turns from lock to lock is irrelevant really. In fact if the steering wasn't power assisted, the steering would be much heavier than if more turns were required to turn the wheels from lock to lock.

Also the car is actually quite tricky to park because the turning circle for a small car is rather big!

From what I understand, if a car is designed without power steering, the manufacturer also increases the amount of turns that must be made lock-to-lock. Thus, if a car owner removed the power steering, it would indeed be simply harder to steer. However, when a manufacturer does this, they compensate by spreading the effort over more turns by decreasing the size of the pinion.

I suppose that a manufacturer could provide more power assistance in a car with many turns lock-to-lock, but this would negate the need for the added assistance in the first place. Primetime 19:48, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

What you wrote though sounds like the steering is lighter because there are less turns lock-to-lock. The steering is lighter because it is assisted.

According to the Meriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged "light" entry, light has two definitions applicable in this case: (1) having little weight : not heavy, and (2) able to be performed with little effort : demanding comparatively little energy or strength <contributed to the family income by doing light work -- M.S.Kendrick>. Thus, it could be either of us is wrong. When the ratio is low (many turns to little front wheel movement) and the assistance high, then it's light in the first sense. But, when assistance is high and the ratio is high, then it's light in the second sense in that it requires relatively less effort to steer the car for each turn. It's hard to say what Autoexpress meant when it said light. So, I'll go ahead and eliminate the comment on the turn ratio--not because I'm wrong, but because I could be wrong about what they meant. Primetime 14:47, 25 November 2005 (UTC)