"Jon" wrote in message

Hi Jon

I can't help on the consumption, but to me 9 months / 9000 miles seems
pretty much standard for Alfas if your not a driver that sits on a motorway
all day. Most of my driving is A roads, so I therefore use the car.

I have the 156 2.4JTD, which I bought in Oct 02. I am now on my third set of
tyres on the front, second on back and have done 21k miles.

On the front, the first factory set lasted about 9k and had worn to thread
on the inside. The second set (Avon's) lasted 10000 miles. This set (Eagle
NCTs)...well I can't say yet. They do however stick like hell and a very
very quiet.

That's all I can say really apart from the fact that both the V6 and JTD
engines are big blocks of metal that sit over the driving and steering
wheels.

Enjoy your driving.

Simon C
156 2.4JTD V1 (2002)
To reply: remove nospam. from the address

I've got a 2003 2.5 V6  - its only done 5,000 miles and my overall average
is 25.5MPG - If I drive at a steady 70MPG I get just over 30MPG - mind you
mine does have a 6 speed manual gearbox which helps.

If I cane it around  the country lanes I get about 19MPG.

I'll let you know about the tyres, the cars still on its first set !!

Jon

I think you should have the alignment checked on the car (all four
wheels ?60 now is cheaper than new tyres every 9000 miles). I had a
166 3.0 and managed 22,000 miles on the first set of tyres (Goodyear
F1 17"). I was very impressed with this as I had a 164 Cloverleaf and
that eat four tyres in 10,000 miles. Though this could have been more
to do with lack of traction control (ASR or any other electronic
gizmo). Also the 164 was set up for front toe out (compensate torque
steer) and rear toe in. The 166 front should be set to zero toe
in/out, and the rear with toe in (high speed stability). Not to state
the obvious, but check the tyre pressures. If you are near Winchester
I would highly recommend Micheldever tyres.

As for fuel consumption, that is really low. I used to average 31 mpg
on a motorway at legal speeds, and around 28mpg at higher speeds. I
also averaged 25 mpg on a 2500 mile trip down to Italy with an average
of 80mph through Germany even though there we lots of roadworks, lots
of mountain passes and a fully loaded car.

Alex

This figure doesn't surprise me but I'm no expert on the 166.

Well..I'm heading for 30000 miles (currently 4mm left at 27000 miles)
on a set of Continental Sport Contact tyres. Some here don't like them
but I think they're fine. They don't appear (to me) to have any
terrible weaknesses but they do go on forever. If your wear pattern is
even, I doubt there's any great misalignment so I can only suggest
getting 'harder' rubber if this is a major concern. Don't be fobbed
off with other Continental tyres..at least 'Sport Contact' and it's at
least the revision II tyre now.

At a 3+ year average of 41mpg, I don't drive mine gently AND my tyres
were chewed by the factory Veloce 'misalignment' for their first 9500
miles (an issue that killed tyres before 12000 miles by prematurely
wearing off the inner edges). I would not be surprised if, driven
gently(!), CSCII tyres could be made last 40000 miles on my car. The
only reason I have ever changed tyres on my Alfa is due to punctures!

ROTFWL

Notice how most of the replies are from us JTD drivers! But then what
would you expect with a subject mentioning fuel economy.

Jon wrote in
<9f131b9a.0408200427.28c064f@posting.google.com>

I do most of my driving on motorways and my 166 2.0 does just over 500 miles
to the tank if that gives any sort of comparison - that's much the same as
my 164 2.0 and the 164 3.0 would get tantalisingly close to 400 miles on a
tank full.

Your figures sound low but I've no experience of the 2.5 engine.