At the advertised lease price, they offered me three colors neither of which was red. I chose the green one (visconti verde) with yellow brake calipers because 1) I liked the color and 2) it was the only one that came with a spare tire. But I agree with you, an Alfa should be red. I looked into buying a Mopar warranty but my dealer's service manager said I should buy from a different brand (AXIOM). With a Mopar you have to have the car serviced at an Alfa dealer. My dealer said they work with and accept AXIOM and not only that, if I find myself somewhere not near an Alfa dealer, I can still file a claim with them. As it turns out more and more Alfa dealers across the country are closing, but that's a whole other discussion. Actually, the Dodge Hornet is a rebadged Alfa Romeo Tonale and is about $15,000 less. They used a Jeep Renegade platform so the handling is not as crisp as the Stelvio.
That could be because the wheelbase exactly matches that of the Jeep Compass but the car is quite a bit wider. The powertrain is all Alfa I believe. Isn't the Tonale only made as an electric?
It's a plug-in hybrid. You get about 30 miles on electric power before the gas engine takes over. I'm not sure about the Hornet, I think it's strictly a gas engine.
Yeah - Hornet is gas only which is why I thought it was closer to Stelvio than Tonale. That and the engine - same as the Stelvio but tuned to run on regular gas not premium. I always used regular in my Stelvio anyway with no problem. On the other hand I see that the Hornet is built in the same plant as the Tonale and the Stelvio is built elsewhere.
So in your scenario, someone who has the cash to buy a car outright is going to lose his car if he loses his job? All because they decided to get a loan instead. Would they not have the $40K in the bank that they could have spent on the car? Or does their bank close their account and take their money because they lost their job?
Car shopping sucks.... but I know it's coming soon for me as well, as I'm still rolling the 2000 Nissan Frontier.... that I bought 24 years ago
I love cars, so I don't mind shopping for them. Funny story. I clicked on one of these blind offers from a rental car company because I just needed some wheels and didn't care what it was. Got to the garage and parking lot # and discovered it was a new Nissan Frontier. Rather than go back down to the check-in desk and ask for a different car I told my wife "yeah I can drive this." For someone who has only driven SUV's for the past 20 years, I figured it wouldn't be much different. Wrong! Shocked to find it drives like a truck! So I drove it for a week around the Bay area. Felt all powerful driving on the highway. The hard part was maneuvering in parking lots, but I returned it without so much as a scratch.
If there's one true knock on the Frontiers it's the turning radius of a Greyhound Bus... But I'd definitely buy another.... casually looking for a sweet deal on a 2019 (last year of the old platform)
This whole post is really smart and good advice - I just can’t wrap my head around the bold part. Interesting. I know people do this, but it’s usually job and industry that drive it. On principle alone, I’d have probably combed through listings in every postage stamp Nevada border town before I’d let NY and CA both get their claws in me. Cool post, westie.
Thanks, always happy to give car advice. My wife bought me a t-shirt that says "Will talk cars with anyone." As for the East Coast-West Coast thing, my wife and I are in our 70's, so we understand we can't do this for much longer and will eventually move out there, within the next year or the following year at the latest.
My "Silver Burro" starting to become a PIA.... not looking forward to actually buying a new one though
