I was driving approx. 55 mph on sunrise hwy in long island, exit 50 east bound and my sunroof just exploded/shattered. i could not find any evidence of a rock or anything that may have hit it.
The car moves to neutral gear while in motion. it has happened on highway at 70 mph and more often while making turns at busy intersections. thus putting the driver in extreme harms way. the vehicle has to be instantly moved to drive mode to accelerate out of the risky impact situation. the problem was demonstrated to and replicated by the dealership. software updates, shifter change and a new transmission has not fixed the issue. the car remains at the dealership for further investigation and under dispute as a possible lemon. the issue has happened over a dozen times and we have only noted the last date. this has been on going for few months.
This is a 3rd incident of the same mishap. on 3 occasions i have been driving at very slow speeds , maybe 5 to 10 mph , i have applied the brakes , the brakes have locked in place and the engine has suddenly accelerated. the first time i continued to apply the brakes and after a while the acceleration ended. i was very scare and took car to dealer. they checked it and reprogramed the cars computer, but found nothing afoul or abnormal. the second time it happened , i put car in park and turned it off. went back to dealer and they did the same thing as the first time : tested the car , found nothing wrong and reprogramed the car's computer. they also said they had no notices from alfa's principal office in the usa related to my complaints. on april 18 the 3rd incident occurred. this one was a bit more scary since i almost impacted a parked car. i was leaving office at about 5 to 7 mph , i had to apply the brakes and they once again locked in place and the car suddenly accelerated on his own. this time the acceleration lasted longer at higher rpm. only a fast reaction to place car in park and immediately shut the car off avoided an collision with a parked car. i was again very scared since iam afraid this will continue to happen putting life and property in jeopardy. iam scheduled to take car back to dealer next week. i continue to drive it but with great caution and scare to death. your agency needs to take action to avoid bodily harm or damage to property. all 3 incidents the car was in motion on a city street.
When i went to insure this car, my insurance company told me that my vin indicated that this car is awd. it is not awd, it's rear-drive only. changes need to be made to your vin registry to reflect this reality, i don't know if it affects other alfa romeo vehicles or not. thanks.
While the vehicle is driving, the interior cabin experiences an engine smell coming from the ac vents when it is running because according to one of their technicians the engine area is not sealed completely. the smell from the engine area at times then comes thru the air vents into the cabin area, and the smell makes it very difficult to drive without having the windows opened. it makes it very difficult to breathe. i'm afraid that i'm breathing in engine smells that could be potentially dangerous. alfa does not have a fix for the problem as of yet. they have already attempted to create a fix, but it was not sufficient to seal the smell completely, it only minimized the smell at best. i took the vehicle to 2 dealerships now, and both have been unable to solve the problem. all i'm told is alfa romeo doesn't have a fix for the problem yet. the issue has occurred since day 1 of buying the car. the vehicle was sold to me with dozens of active recalls that had to be fixed after the day of purchase. i'm not sure if thats legal, but it's just more the nonsense i've been dealing with when dealing with this car manufacturer. the local dealerships in nyc area do not even keep a loaner, none of them! i have to travel to ct dealerships to assure i have a loaner.
While driving on a highway at approximately 70 miles per hour my sun roof exploded outward raining shards of glass both outward and down toward the passengers.