Mini Review - Dodge Charger

That's the best part of going to the States, cheap petrol and comfy big cars :)

Ohh and Red Lobster and Ponderosa :)

I also love the amount of radio stations they have, every taste in music is catered for, I have hired so far....

Chrysler Sebring

Hmm not a bad car, very mondeo inside all cheap plastic but was my first hire car in America, and being a cabrio was great at night, during the day it was too hot to have the roof down, specially as I am more foliclly challenged these days ha-ha

Chrysler 300M

This was one of the best yank cars I have driven, tons and tons of room, the biggest cup holders you have ever seen, must have had about 20 speakers, was very quiet and had every electric gizmo imaginable.

Ford Mustang cabrio

Well a bit of a disappointment, no go at all but made tons of noise, big

5.litre V8 in a convertible is nice with the roof down, but as it was an auto took ages to wind up, turned heads though, and we had fun :)

Yeah, they have sations for Country *and* for Western music :-P

Fuck, lat time I was there, I drove from San Francisco to Las Vegas - outside of the two cities, every other radio station seemed to be Christian Rock *shudder*. Utterly horrible.

Speaking of which, I don't know if it'll be of any use, but the place where I work has an ebay account where they flog off dead stock - most things are cheap (Fiat Coupe doorskin for two pounds twenty, that kind of thing). It's a bit pot-luck, but you might find something relevant one day. It's 'Mangoparts' on ebay.

Erm, aye. I actually phoned them up for some stuff a few weeks ago.

Bloody useless. Told me loads of stuff was no longer available - which is odd, 'cos I got a Dutch outfit to send just about everything I asked for over to me within a few days - they were cheaper, too.

And that's the point! ;)

We had an Impala the last time. Cheap leather, great climate control, 3.9 V6 (233 hp). It felt moderately pokey, but really it was all about the cruising. At freeway speeds* it averaged ~32 mpg. That's US gallons, though, which translates as somewhere around 38 mpg in UK terms.

*same as the UK, some slower 65 limits, some 70, some 75.

No, but that's because it's the second of four engines. A 2.7 V6 with 190 hp, 3.5 V6 with 250 hp, then the 5.7 V8 with 350 hp and finally the considered-hard core 6.1 V8 with 425 hp. I'm told that the 5.7 is great, the 6.1 slightly silly.

It's there as a feature rather than as having a purpose!

To be fair, the probably were no longer available to the ebay bit - tends to just get rid of dead stock. I think you can request anything available from Italy though. Not sure what sort of mark-up they'd put on it. One of the sale guys is rebuilding a couple of old Alfas and he gets his stuff from the parts dept.

No, I phoned the parts desk (not the ebay bit).

Of a whole list of 75 parts I asked for, all they could get me was a fan switch. Which was quite poor, if you ask me.

Oh right. Well, that's not from unavailability, that's just from something else which I hesitate to name through fear of getting the boot. Sorry they didn't help you.

Heh, not your fault, unless you were the person on the end of the phone ;-)

Unfortunately, they appear to suffer from the same problems as 99% of other Alfa dealers out there.

The only one I've ever found to be useful was Coupers in St. Albans, before Alfa UK booted them. But I suspect that was only because I knew an employee there.

what year was that then? most of the mustangs are wimpy V6's :( unless you grab a shelby 500!

Think it was a 4.6l which I am sure is a V8, although I am not 100%, can't see a 4.6 being a v6?

That's pretty well the same as my BMW E39 528 auto. Except it goes when you tell it to and handles pretty well too.

Yup, they have a 4.0l V6, a 4.6l v8 or a 5.3 (5.4?) v8, I think.

Ah well, It turns out I had it wrong anyway. I asked today, apparently bits for the 75 are getting rare at the factory now. But you already knew that. I asked the sales guy who's restoring his, he says there's some place down south called EB or something. How's that for detailed & accurate?!

EB Spares in Westbury, that would be:

Heard good things about them - a mate used them quite a bit a while ago when he was running Giuliettas (the 75 predecessor not the 50s one).

Heh - he means EB Spares.....

Strange that the Cloggies can get hold of the bits - unless some enterprising types have been stockpiling the stuff.

However, it could just be that Alfa UK aren't supplying the stuff.... which wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

I'll ask tomorrow. The place I work at is an independent dealer, dunno if that'd make much of a difference. The parts guys seem to deal directly with Italy a lot, but again, this means nowt to me. They got Nobel in as a part-ex the other day. On a 147 diesel.

That's her!

Thought Mango-wotsit were main dealers.....