During the electrical problems I was having with my ‘perfect’ and ‘reliable’ MX-5 BBR turbo, AKA Maggy the 5th, I had had the
Alfa Romeo Brera a good few months (purchased Christmas 2012), and I enjoyed driving her, and it wasn’t giving me any of the
reliability issues my mates kept jibbing me about regarding Alfa’s previous reputation.

Nonetheless, she was disappointing me in a couple of areas.

First of all was the power delivery. When the turbo kicked in, you got a lovely surge of power and a thump in the back that felt like more than the 210bhp on tap. The problem was the delay to that delivery of power – a serious turbo lag issue. Looking back at some of the previous cars I’d owned and driven – the turbo charged 220bhp (in theory – it was producing less than 200bhp in reality) MX-5 and the Imprezza I’d driven on a track day – I had loved the turbo lag. However, that had been a half to one second delay, enough to build anticipation before the lightning struck.

In the Brera, it took more like 2 seconds – particularly if you’d not dropped down a gear – and this made it frustrating and potentially dangerous. Several times I’d go to overtake and not have the power until too late. Once I recall pulling out across a busy junction which I’d been queuing at for ages and almost causing a crash because she’d delayed too long in spooling up the turbo to shift that big heavy diesel lump out of the way!

Sadly my Dad had passed away a few months before. I was in the process of trying to sell his low mileage (37,000 miles I believe?) 2002 Ford Mondeo 2.0TCDi. It had 130bhp compared to the 2008 Brera’s 210bhp yet responded in a much more satisfying
way.

Secondly, there was the fuel efficiency.

I’d bought a diesel to try and cut my extortionate fuel costs driving from the East Midlands to North Wales and back regularly
for work.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have bought a 210bhp 2.4 litre turbo and gone for a sensible 2 litre BMW diesel as my colleague Dave would constantly tell me. Perhaps he was right. But the official ‘combined’ MPG figure for the car was around 40mpg which was significantly better than anything else I’d owned – the 300ZX getting only 17mpg and the MX-5 BBR turbo achieving somewhere between 27 and 32mpg depending on how I drove her – and I always drove her hard – it would be rude not to!

In real life though, I couldn’t get better than 34mpg, and that was driving like an old man with cataracts. Realistically I was getting 31mpg – not the sort of fuel consumption I was hoping for.

However, she remained problem free.

Unfortunately the Gremlins returned.

But not to the Alfa.

They’d jumped off Maggy the 3rd (AKA Smokey Disaster), riddled the Nissan 300ZX for a bit and rusted her away, then hopped back
onto Maggy the 5th.

My electrical issues had gone, but now she was starting to overheat.

In Dec ’12 she overheated on the way to my cousin’s wedding. Fortunately I’d managed to cool her down and get my brother who was passing to lend me some water and then my Dad came by and I followed at a snails pace and made it on time. The problem then
appeared to be a fault with the radiator cap, and once replaced (saved by eBay yet again!), didn’t overheat any more.

Until it got warmer in the summer of 2013.

She overheated a few times. A few remedies were tried, but to no avail, and eventually, the engine went pop.

The original Mazda MX-5 engine is an incredibly solid lump, and will easily do 200,000 miles without issue. Some say it’s over engineered, making it perfect for turbo charging – although of course over doing it will cause the engine life to shorten. This one was turbocharged, but mildly, and with a Mazda approved BBR kit – so it should have lasted longer than it’s current 110,000 miles.

Yet it hadn’t. Although I’d bought a rust free and in theory well looked after car, it seemed it’s garaging had been the only TLC
it had received – the engine hadn’t been so well looked after; we found various botch jobs and evidence of tampering or previous
repair of the head gasket.

Fortunately, my good friend – nay, lifesaver car guru – James was on hand (yet again, bless him) and took her away to rebuild the top end.

But summer 2013 was here!! And I didn’t have a working softtop!

I was missing the feel of the wind in my hair (facial hair, I should say).

And the Brera’s sluggish turbo lag and subpar MPG performance were bugging me. If she’d been a bit on the slow side but got 40
plus mpg, I might not have been so bothered. But what was the point of having a slow diesel if it’s not economical?

I’d also got into my first potentially serious relationship since my divorce and although it was early days, realised that it was likely in the future that I would need a car at weekends to go places with my daughter, future long-term girlfriend and any kids that she may have.

So the solution was clearly a convertible with rear seats!

The only thing that was clear was that I’d not learnt my lesson.

In July 2013, I bought my second 3 litre BMW convertible (335).

I argued with myself that this was a sensible decision. It was a metal hard top convertible so would be quiet on the commute. And
although it had a large and powerful engine (think it produced about 320bhp!) it was a 2008 BMW; the brand being known to achieve the some of the best MPG figures for the power ratio at the time; besides, I was earning good money, and even though I still had to drive to North Wales, it was only once a week now.

The engine had two turbochargers so pulled very nicely, rather than the flat performance of the 2001 BMW 3 series convertible I’d
had back in 2007/2008.

Of course, after a very short time (2 weeks??) I’d decided I didn’t like it.

It was too heavy.

It wasn’t economical (well duh!).

I didn’t like ‘the image’ – it was a little too flash and people wouldn’t let me in at junctions again – flashbacks to Porsche ownership!

The hardtop took waaaay too long to operate. The thing I love about the MX-5 is that you can pop the hood off in about 1 second
and raise it in 2; even if you’re moving – so great at traffic lights when the sun pops out or the breeze/rain steps up. In the beamer it took about 10 seconds, and although in theory it was operable when moving, it was restricted when you went above 10mph – so I dare not operate at traffic lights. I did a couple of times and resulted in queuing traffic honking at me which was rather embarrassing.

You also look like a prat sat there with your finger on the button waiting for your fancy metal roof to fold up/down on your flashy shiny BMW – you can almost feel the stares.

With a £1500 MX-5 you just don’t get that.

Then of course I ended up single again, and with the MX-5 AKA Maggy the 5th back and running (plus a few more cosmetic tweaks, such as black alloys and new rear lights) was using that when I could.

I decided to try and get rid of the beamer ASAP – would the dealers take it back?

Only at a RIDICULOUS cut in price.

So I considered selling privately… it was still summer… the world economics were improving… I’d got it for what I considered a reasonable price so perhaps I could sell it quickly and not loose out too badly…

But the Gremlins hadn’t left yet…!

Next part of the story: Gremlins strike back