on 2040-cars

Auto blog

332,000 Jeep, Fiat and Alfa Romeo models recalled over faulty seat belt buckle sensors

Stellantis has recalled 332,000 Alfa Romeo, Jeep, and Fiat vehicles in the United States due to faulty seat belt sensors. Included in the recall are certain 2017-2024 Alfa Romeo Giulia and 2018-2025 Stelvio models along with 2019-2023 Fiat 500X, Jeep Renegade, and 2024 Fiat 500E models. According to documents posted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "A disrupted connector on the buckle switch hall effect may affect the conduction on the connectors of the seat wiring and buckle which may cause the front seat air bag to not perform as expected during a crash." In more simple terms, the sensor that tells the vehicle's onboard computer if an occupant's seat belt is buckled may fail. If this happens, an airbag may not inflate in the event of a crash as intended. As of June 26, 2024, Stellantis says it has identified 578 field reports in North America potentially related to this issue. "The remedy will be to replace the connector by directly wiring the sensor to the harness with a solder tube," according to documentation provided by Stellantis. All repairs will be made free of charge.

Form and function in fairly equal parts | 2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio First Drive

Alfa Romeo, a brand synonymous with sports cars that combine beautiful Italian design with historically dodgy reliability, now makes a crossover. The Stelvio is named after what is quite possibly the best driving road in the world, and the automaker would have you believe that it is the most purely focused driver's ute in the world. To that end, the Stelvio boasts a perfect 50/50 front-to-rear weight distribution, a fast 12.0:1 steering ratio, and an all-wheel-drive system that's tuned to send 100 percent of the engine's power to the rear wheels whenever possible. All of those bits add up to an SUV that's genuinely fun to drive on winding roads. Think of the Stelvio as an Alfa Romeo Giulia with a suspension lift kit that puts you 2.5 inches higher off the tarmac. Yes, those stilts mean the crossed-over Alfa isn't quite as sharp as the Giulia, but the Stelvio isn't at all dimwitted. It's a true Alfa Romeo, in spirit and in execution, right down to its standard carbon-fiber driveshaft. The Stelvio shares its 111-inch wheelbase and its double-wishbone front and Alfa Link rear suspension systems with the Giulia. That's not to say that the Stelvio drives as well or looks as good as the Giulia. The crossover is 2 inches longer and 8.9 inches taller than the sedan from which it was born. We got the feeling that we were sitting on top of the car's chassis instead of within it, which is due entirely to the high seating position that American drivers are so fond of. And whereas the Giulia wears its sheetmetal like a slinky little black dress, the Stelvio's Scudetto front fascia and Trilobo air intakes are stretched over a much larger frame and its sides are sculpted in a more masculine way. Still, the Stelvio is an attractive beast, inside and out. It's unmistakably Italian, which is to say well-tailored with an impeccable form that influences but begrudgingly follows function. Leather seating surfaces are standard. From the driver's seat, the dashboard is dominated by two binnacles housing the tachometer and speedometer. In between is an LCD display that shows a bunch more relevant information. A second screen in an exaggerated widescreen format houses the bespoke infotainment system from Magneti Marelli. That LCD's unique shape makes it look smaller than the Stelvio's competitors, especially as its pinched height makes the backup camera image appear pretty small.

2015 Alfa Romeo 4C Spider First Drive [w/video]

New cars are getting, to quote Alice during her Adventures in Wonderland, "curiouser and curiouser." Take the Alfa Romeo 4C, a car from a mass-market European brand with supercar-like construction at a price that starts under $55,000. The exotic looks on the outside are countered with an almost pre-war era lack of frills on the inside, but the 4C drives like a street-legal go-kart when you put it to work. That price is either a bargain or a ripoff, depending on your priorities. This oddity now has a topless variant in the 2015 Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, which is almost identical to the coupe at first glance. On the stat sheet, two numbers separate this open-top car from its closed-cabin sibling. The first is ground clearance, which goes down in the Spider: 4.4 inches here compared to 4.5 inches in the coupe. The second number is 22. That's how many pounds the Spider gains by losing its roof, for a claimed weight of 2,487 pounds. Alfa Romeo senior product planner Fabio Migliavacca says none of that mass comes from body reinforcement. The 4C's carbon fiber tub was engineered for convertible duty from the go. Alfa Romeo engineered the 4C's carbon fiber tub to handle convertible duty from the beginning, so the roof on the coupe – made of the same sheet-molded compound as the rest of the body – isn't a structural member. The Spider's canvas soft top accounts for an extra 14.3 pounds, making it heavier than the roof on the coupe. And yes, you read that correctly, the Spider comes standard with a canvas top. The optional carbon fiber roof panel costs $3,500. In fact, the options list is so full of woven composite accessories that, during the presentation, one journalist asked if the $1,595 charge for destination and handling could also be had in carbon fiber. The other 7.7 pounds comes from small alterations. The Spider gets larger mufflers – 11-liter cans here, as opposed to eight liters on the coupe - for a richer exhaust note. The car's rear haunches are reshaped to be fuller than those on the hardtop, and the engine cover is now a single solid piece, without the coupe's revealing clear insert. A few changes on the Spider will come to the coupe, including a pair of cellphone pockets, one next to each seat. The awful Parrot stereo goes away, replaced by a more friendly Alpine unit. Some coupe options are standard features on the Spider, like the full leather interior. Two of the six seat styles and four of the six available wheels are exclusive to the Spider.