Its ad claims that today’s Nice Price or No Dice Alfa Stelvio comes with “10 wheels, 12 tires, 2 sets of lug bolts total.” Let’s see if this well-optioned performance crossover is priced to roll.
Yesterday’s 1990 Mercedes-Benz 560 SEC was a big, bold, and stately, that V8 coupe offered not just old-school panache but also a potential investment opportunity, as its $22,000 asking price sits on the low end of the market at present. Unfortunately for its seller, too few of you wanted to make that investment. You all let the Benz bomb in a 67% ‘No Dice’ loss.
Italian flair
In contrast to the country’s sonorous, lovely language, Italy’s automotive industry is noted for building engines with some of the most guttural, emotive exhaust notes on the planet. Today’s 2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio (four-leaf) is powered by a 2.9-liter 690T V6 that produces a whopping 505 horsepower, 443 pound-feet of torque, and, when at full chat, the kinds of noises that can drive the avowedly chaste to wanton acts of debauchery.
All of this is made possible by twin turbos and an odd 90° angle between the banks, which allows for a lower center of gravity. The odd angle is owed to the engine having been developed, not from a clean sheet, but with Ferrari’s F154 V8 as a starting point, by that motor’s designer, Gianluca Pivetti.
Here, that is backed up by an eight-speed ZF 8HP75 automatic transmission and Q4 all-wheel drive. Stopping is handled by a set of massive Brembo brakes, which, when new, added $8,000 to the car’s cost.
Your daily fiber
Those Brembos feature carbon ceramic discs, just one of the carbon accouterments this Stelvio carries. Others include the front splitter and a pair of special Sparco bucket seats with carbon fiber backrests. Those are lighter than the standard seats but give up seat heating in the name of that weight loss. All these elements are part of a High Performance Package (HPP) that the seller says was a one-and-done option Alfa offered in 2018.
The seller also claims to have owned this Stelvio since almost new, and to be a ‘technician’ who has “loved and cared for this vehicle better than most people can imagine.” Hopefully, that implies they have maintained the car over the last near-decade and the modest 49,735 miles the Alfa has done over that time. One of the foibles of the Stelvio’s V6 is the short tour of duty the cam belts serve, requiring replacement every 5 years or 60,000 miles, according to Alfa Romeo. Has that already been done? When was the last fluid change? The seller goes as far as to say that the car hasn’t been driven in the rain unless absolutely necessary, but short-changes us on specifics about the maintenance history.
So many wheels
The reason for omitting the maintenance history (which is pretty critical on an Alfa) is probably because the seller is obsessed with which wheel and tire combination would look best on the car. Per the ad, there are 10 wheels, 12 tires, and two sets of lug bolts to mount them. Those cover both the factory alloys and aftermarket wheels, along with winter and summer meats, so it all makes some sense even if the next owner will need to make their garage look like a Discount Tire store.
All the wheels are promised to be rash-free, and all seem to wear Pirelli tires. The rest of the Stelvio appears to be in excellent shape, as one would expect of a car that’s less than 10 years old and has been well-cared for over that time.
When new, this, along with its Giulia platform mate, represented Alfa’s top-of-the-heap models, and as such, featured all the bells and whistles one could want in a modern machine. That means power everything, a decent-sized center screen with satellite radio and Nav, plus Apple CarPlay, making both of those features redundant. The car also comes with a clean title and an accident-free history.
Depreciation appreciation
The seller kindly offers a shot of the Stelvio’s original Monroney sticker in the ad. That shows an original price of $98,680 before tax and everything else. The base price of the car was $79,795, with the option list (including $8,000 for the fancy brakes) adding almost $20,000. That brought the total to nearly six figures. Yikes!
Fortunately, there’s great value in sitting on our hands and allowing time and depreciation to do their work. And boy, do they take their toll on Alfa Romeos. While once almost $100K, this Stelvio now asks $30,000. That’s a two-thirds drop in eight years or about an $8,750 hit each and every year.
Does that make this an excellent bargain now? Or is the crazy train just leaving the station on its way to more depreciation? What’s your take on this carbon-heavy Stelvio at that current $30,000 cost? Would you pull the trigger at that price, considering all the wheel options that come with the deal? Or at that price, is the seller pressing their luck?
You decide!
Seattle, Washington, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Don R. for the hookup!
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