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- Thread starter gralegrrrrr
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Neofolis said:
No, you'll probably find now that a vast majority integrale's are 2nd cars and as such live a sedate life indoors being fettled with to a very high degree.
There are estimates that there are about 300 integrales in the UK (not exactly a lot in a nation with million cars) in total & I saw 107 of those at this years first London 2 Brighton run & would say that 98% of those were in very high order, some cars had not even covered 10,000miles, others are track day warriors.
So I suppose when you consider that you may be lucky enough to know one or maybe 2 people who have had one, & one of those people is unfortunate to have one without the requisite full service history (it was cheap etc etc) & has problems, then you are going to have an opinion which relates to 50 or 100% or your experience of that car, hence the general feeling of them being unreliable.
Don't get me wrong, there are a few areas of the car you need to look for, but its more to do with rust than the mechanics, but then theses cars are 10-15 years old and how many other cars of this vintage don't have these problems. It's all about perceptions, think about how many MK2 Golfs (similare age to an integrale) that were sold in the UK, a hundred thousand maybe, yet how many are on the roads now, 50,000 roughly and of those there are a lot of rusty dogs out there, yet VW are still perceived as being better than Italian. In the 70's all car manufacturers had problems with rust, big time, but the Germans went about their work quietly, dealing with it at the service intervals, what did Fiat/Lancia do, put out a press release sating they knew they had a problem, so over night the general public thought all Italian cars fell to bits (ok the Alfa Sud did but we'll let that one slip) So approx 50% of VW Golf MK2's are still going against I would say 80-90% of integrale's sold here are still going and of the ones that are gone a lot of those would have been crashed or stolen for parts.
But then Italian cars in general are considered this way, when Mercedes has languished at the bottom of the J-D Power survey now for about 2 years. I even got posted a link recently to the Mercedes owners forum that show a thread where 50% of Mercedes owners have had to take their cars back under warrenty as their cars are starting to rust after only 3/4 years.
Another rant over, but hey we're on this Forum cos we love Italian cars!
Aaron.
TashyG said:
Hello to you!
Welcome to the forum, hope you enjoy our daily talks!
Aaron.
gralegrrrrr said:
Heh, thats true, but it'll be a very long time before I can afford a 280!
EXTREMELY late here> but WELCOME!
TashyG said:loveing them to be sure....but i have my own welcome thread for such posts so lets not ruin his!!!
Oh well thats me told off already, better go to your thread then
I take your point about the remaining Integrale's being in good nick, although I would say this is now mainly because they are owned by people who love the car, most of whom probably couldn't afford to own one when they were new.
A mark2 golf is not a similar car, in that it is almost generic and most of the owners would not have cared for them in the same way or had the same respect for the vehicle. I appreciate that there are many Golf lovers out there and that the mark1 Golf is considered to be iconic by many, but that would not have been the case for many of the drivers.
I would say almost all people who have bought an Integrale did so because they wanted an Integrale, a lot of people who bought Golf's did so because they wanted a car.
A mark2 golf is not a similar car, in that it is almost generic and most of the owners would not have cared for them in the same way or had the same respect for the vehicle. I appreciate that there are many Golf lovers out there and that the mark1 Golf is considered to be iconic by many, but that would not have been the case for many of the drivers.
I would say almost all people who have bought an Integrale did so because they wanted an Integrale, a lot of people who bought Golf's did so because they wanted a car.
goodday and welcome to the house of fun
Neofolis said:
Yeah you're right about them being different cars, but I was just using it as a point of how we perceive things, & how a slick PR department has such an effect on what we think, whether we think we are susceptible to it or not. The one thing that surprised me though when I bought my integrale was how many are one owner cars from new, or one owner from date of import if not a UK model, but as for cost it's a tuff one, many are as expensive today as they were 15 years ago, it all goes in perspective when you can buy a new Imprezza WRX for less than £20k or a 10/12 year old integrale EVO 1 or 2 for anything from £6500 to £30k for a limited edition very low millage model.
Aaron.
At the end of the day, it's a car that will always have a lot of respect and a lot of admirers. Prices are likely to rise as fewer good examples are available.
True, it's just ashame that for the foreseeable future, there are likely to be no more cars like this except for the Jap chariots, which are good but we need some European stuff like we used to with the Cosworths, Quattro's & integrale. If only the rules dictated now that you had to have a road going model, it would be interesting to see some 206 or Xsara 4WD hooligans on the road, or even better something from the Fiat/Lancia group, perhaps a 4WD Stilo Abarth Turbo
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