Alfa Romeo Reviews

All electric fuel pumps, regardless of the make or model of car, have a finite lifespan. Since your car is now getting on for 20 years of age, it’s a fair bet the pump is due for replacement. These pumps spend their lives submerged in fuel, pumping it from the tank to the engine is pretty extreme conditions. So it’s really no surprise when they give up the ghost after several years of this type of treatment.

Sometimes you’ll be lucky and detect the pump either getting lazy or failing to work on an intermittent basis. If that’s the case, the message is to get the pump replaced pronto. In other cases (and it’s pretty common) the pump will simply go from working perfectly one day to not working at all the next. And given the way electronically controlled engines work, if the pump isn’t working, there’s no way the car will start or run.

That’s quite a broad range of abilities you’ve listed there. Both the Jeep and the Land Rover are pretty serious off-roaders while, the Alfa Romeo Stelvio is an SUV that really has no pretenses to working on a bush track.

None of this trio would be cheap to service, and modern turbo-diesel engines really do need their maintenance to remain reliable. In terms of industry reputation, the Jeep has a background of electrical and build-quality problems, while the Land Rover and Alfa Romeo also have their share of quality glitches. Many owners put up with this stuff, but if you’re going to head seriously outback, there are probably better choices.

The other part of the equation is what happens when you wish to sell the vehicle in a few years. Frankly, all three of these cars will be a reasonable bet to suffer plenty of depreciation although, to be fair, a 2021 version of each will already have done some of that.

This sounds like a job for an auto electrician, as it's impossible to diagnose something like this by remote control. But for reference, it could be something as complex as a major problem with the wiring harness and its networking, or something as simple as a flat battery in the key fob. But the fact that the car knows something is wrong and issues a fault warning is actually good news and suggests that an electronic scan of the car will throw up the answer pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, Alfa Romeo dragged its heels on warranty, and only made a five-year warranty standard after April 22, 2022. Which means your 2019 car came only with a three-year warranty which has, of course, now expired.