I’ve always preferred eBay to Craigslist. Call me paranoid, but there’s something about the unpolished, plain-site look of Craigslist that just make me look at absolutely anything within it with considerable doubt. Things like the “Personals” section and the horror stories that are a Google search away do nothing to reassure either; eBay could be an Apple store by comparison. But on this particular listing, with the blurry image you see above headlining it, I felt as though some of the soul from the list of Craig got lost and somehow ended up on the Bay of e.
(If these wretched pictures of this 164 are a bit off-putting, here’s one from Paul’s CC of this handsome car)
I’m not the only one feeling that, right? The blurry pictures of a beaten car with missing trim taken in what seems to be the parking lot of a local hospital, mixed with daytime pictures of an absolutely filthy interior apparently taken at an entirely different location, then combined with a description of less than one hundred words and therefore could fit on the back of a business card. Even if the seller is completely honest and simply has no idea of how to structure a good ad it just feels off, for lack of a better word.
1991 Alfa Romeo 164 with 102K , daily driver for the past year, owned it for about 6 years. Good running engine, body has no signs of rust or a major accident. Transmission switches gears a little fast, a common problem that can be corrected without dropping the transmission about $100 in parts. Selling it cheap. The low mileage engine alone is worth at least $1500. Sold As Is could use a little work here and there but it’s a daily user.
I’m guessing that the huge dent and missing indicator are just a minor accident. Also point of note with used cars; if someone says that there’s something that needs fixing and that’s very easy and inexpensive to fix, it isn’t. If that was the case, they’d do it to increase the value of the sale. Also, there’s no picture of the odometer.
The first time I saw an Alfa Romeo 164 was in the yellow pages. The year was 1998 and I was browsing through this fascinating gigantic yellow book that had arrived for no apparent reason but was filled with cool pictures and lots of phone numbers for many useful things. I spent a couple of hours looking before I arrived at the automotive section and was greeted by one of those. I was six, and the Internet hadn’t been popularized yet so all I knew from it was that it was very pretty and that the triangular grille looked weird and interesting. You can tell Alfas never sold all that well around my neck of the woods. It seems that was the case in America, too, with the 164 being the last Alfa Romeo officially imported to the United States until the 8C’s arrival in 2007.
As I learned about Alfa Romeo’s storied run in the automotive world and all the amazing things they’d done over the years, my curiosity about them only increased; even today I’d love to own one. Not this one though– even if I wanted a fixer-upper, there are enough red flags to sew together and make a car cover for the Alfa. However, if parts support, reliability and a bit of light restoration doesn’t scare you, and you have a second car to move you about, the listing is here. It could be extremely enjoyable or go horribly sour in an instant. That’s what makes it exciting, isn’t it? Plus, he may actually have the title in hand.
More: CC 1993 Alfa Romeo 164 – Alfa’s American Farewell Present
The 164 was one of my favorite cars back in the 1990s, and I still admire them today.
Unlike most of my favorite cars, I had the chance to drive one once. The president of my college owned a 164, and one day we wound up talking and I mentioned that l loved Alfas. To my amazement, he asked if I’d like to drive his car, which of course I did. I was about 20 at the time, and to me the 164 was nothing short of perfection, and I promised myself that I would buy an Alfa someday. Of course, I’m still waiting. But my enthusiasm for the 164 remains undiminished.
I hope that the few of these remaining on the roads find good homes.
The single easy fix annoys me the most on Craigslist is
“It just starts to overheat but still drives okay. Only $8 in parts and easy fix! Selling it cheap! ”
Sigh*
This is one of the “Type 4” cars developed by Saab and Fiat/Lancia/Alfa, so it would be the ZF 4HP18 automatic transmission as in the Saab 9000. These do commonly develop a problem with erratic shifting due to failure of the governor seals, which really is under $100 in parts and maybe an afternoon to fix if you’re mechanically inclined. (Trans doesn’t have to come out.)
” I need to sell this car so bad i ve shot it in the dark, out of focus and at an angle”. Hello
decent pics sell cars these wont.
I know. Even more baffling; he clearly had a chance to take better pics in the day.
I remember as a young child seeing one of these Alfa’s for sale in the corner of a strip mall parking lot on the south side of Milwaukee. My dad and I stopped to look at it, he of course then explained to me what it was, and why it was so rare. I was captivated by it’s clean design and how sporty and luxurious it seemed compared to my dad’s Golf MK3. Loved the 164 ever sense.
Doesn’t the 98 Camry seem all the world like a line for line “tribute” to the 164?
My daily driver 91 Alfa Romeo 164S…
When, in storage during the summer.
Nice !
By the way, the Alfa Romeo 164 did have a VM Motori diesel (given your question a few days ago).
The 2.5 liter 4 cylinder turbo-diesel….yep, there it is again….
As I said, currently Alfa Romeos come with FPT engines. However, Maseratis (also Fiat Group) come with
VM Motori diesels. The 3.0 liter V6, same engine as in the Jeep GC and Ram 1500.
From the eBay listing:
Get Your Alfa Romeo Before The Big 2015 Alfa Romeo Bag !!!
What does that even mean?
Also, don’t believe that bullshit of these Italian cars… Not being reliable or parts are too RARE to keep on the road.
My Alfa has 215,008 miles and runs great… It’s my winter daily.
Parts are pretty cheap compared to my other cars, very surprising for an Italian exotic 4 door. The new starter was only $100, the slave cylinder was $39… Not bad with a car with blistering performance and handling.
I am now an Alfisti for life. 🙂
Around the same miles as my ’91 L had when I sold her… best luxury 4 door I ever had…
Glad to hear it, Mikie. 🙂
I love my Alfa… It starts on the coldest of days and nights. With the new starter, it has never failed me. It seems like when she acts up… She fixes herself in a few hours. Lol
The 164 was made for longevity, and it shows… I’ve read the engine is sodium or silicone filled, to prevent overheating. Not sure about that, but my Alfa seems to run great at the 200+ mark. Lol
I’ve never seen any of these Alfa 164s in the salvage yard… Except, recently, I came across a white/gray 164L. It was still in great shape… paint wise.
When, I saw my Alfa in the back of a European auto dealership, along with a VW Rabbit Cabriolet… I was amazed at the car’s handsome lines, but was wary of the fabled “Italian reliability woes”.
I took a gamble, and I’m glad I did… It seems to have paid off in performance, praise and compliments, and the sheer joy of owning a fun to drive exotic. 🙂
I would never buy or respond to anything on Craigslist. It’s way to sketchy to me, and as you pointed out, image quality is usually horrible, so I don’t even go on it to browse old cars.
As for the Alfa 164, I’ve always liked these cars for their styling and rarity in the U.S. I saw a nice sub-100,000 mile California example on eBay last year. One-owner and all records. It is a car I’d like to own, but not have to buy parts for.
Such a handsome design, the 164. I remember when they were launched here in New Zealand, and how great it felt to see them around new. They seemed to sell quite well (for a large Italian saloon), and there are still a number around, always quietly tempting me…
On a car like this, a “simple, easy fix” MIGHT not have been done because the part/parts were not easily obtainable (not available at NAPA or AUTOZONE) and / or the place to do them (a warm, dry garage) could not be “borrowed”.
I have a 97 Civic that could look 100% better if I had the time and space to effect a few simple and easy repairs. My big b…h about Craigslist auto ads is that folks often don’t want to spend $25-$100 for freon or a battery….or even a used tire or two but somehow expect you to want their old car so badly as to overlook those “minor” details.
Craigslist = yard sale. E-bay = Barrett/Jackson sale.
Yeah, poor selling skills for sure. But these days everybody is so used to having everything handed to them on a platter it’s not even funny. Remember when you only got one tiny photo on eBay, because more pics cost extra? Or buying cars from a newspaper ad that had 10 words of text at most and no pics at all? It wasn’t THAT long ago.
Some of my absolute best buys on both eBay and Craigslist came trough exactly this kind of poorly worded and un-photogenic ads that scared away other buyers. I LOVE ads like this, they keep the price down.
This Alfa is definitely going to be a project. But it’s a find for the right buyer. While the ad is bad enough to scare away most casually interested tire kickers, it wouldn’t scare away someone specifically looking for a project Alfa.
The smart eBay sellers would host pictures on their own hosting and use the img src tag to add them to the body of their listing.
This is the online photo posting equivalent of drunk dialing.
“Uh it’s 2 a.m….gotta shoot sum pichurs of muh car with muh cellphone an’ put ’em up on the interwebs. Erp.”
These ads always baffle me. At least this isn’t a Ferrari. Sometimes they are advertising high-dollar cars with excessive misspellings and kindergarten grammar. How they can be in possession of a hundred thousand dollar car and not be literate just makes me wonder where they get their money.
“I gots a 65 shebby gt350 that I needs to sale the week. air needs a re chage. dont call me unles yous hass the money! no tar kickrs.”
Don’t they have spell check?
I sold an Austin-Healey on Ebay a couple of years ago. I spent a lot of time on writing the ad and taking the photos. It kept inquiries to a minimum and I got almost double what my reserve was. I was shocked at how much it sold for, and I’m sure that my ad had a lot to do with that. I also kept the ad realistic, with no hyperbole or fluff. I just wrote the ad and took the photos the way that I would like to see on Ebay if I were the buyer. The buyer contacted me after he had received the car and told me how happy he was with it. It was a good experience. I believe that a few hours work can equal hundreds or thousands of dollars in these cases. Just write a good, honest ad with a lot of photos….simple.
As bad as Craigslist ads can be, it still beats the old newspaper classifieds.
Remember- no pictures, 15 words (most of them abbreviated) and no search function…
One of these parks daily outside a school around the corner from my house I shot it for the cohort several years ago but its still in daily use, likec most European cars a little maintenance now and then and they are at least as reliable as anything from Asia.
Don’t go there,still plenty better ones around.
I actually sorta prefer the anarchy of craigslist. It’s like taking a trip back to the internet of 1995 (sans “Under Construction” animated .gif)
My only real pet peeve when it comes to ads themselves is reading that something “needs repaired”. No, it doesn’t needs repaired… it “needs to be repaired” or it “needs repair”, but it does NOT “needs repaired”. Something cannot “needs repaired” or “needs replaced”. I’m not even smart enough to know what rules of grammar apply here, but I know it’s wrong and it makes my blood boil in the same way “going to prom” drove me nuts when I was in high school.
As long as the car is 1/2 hour or less away and doesn’t have “salvage title” in the ad it’s worth a look. I found a couple of decent cars after looking at a lot of junk. But trying to sell a car, never saw so many cheapskate low ball grinders in my life. What a waste of time. I won’t try to sell a car on Craigslist.
In Australia we have Gumtree. It’s pretty good but people still have a complacent attitude to photos. Rotate photo so buyers don’t have to sit upside down to view it? Nah, too lazy for that. I don’t even bother with those ads.