Ok I'm not usually one for thread necromancy but I was just gonna start a new thread and this suggested one popped up so here goes.
Lately i'm noticing more and more comments mid thread regarding the life of a twinair engine . Is there actually any real KNOWN issue now the engines old news or is it all 'the skys falling'..... I Get the whole MUST use the very specific oil. Anything else?
As section mod for the 500 I've perhaps kept a closer eye on these comments than many.
Certainly there's nothing to suggest the sky is falling in, but there have been some early turbo failures (IIRC there was a recall for some of the earlier 500's), and a few (but not a lot) of failures of the multiair unit. This has been a known weak point on earlier Alfas, so perhaps a little paranoia is understandable.
I'd say it's still too early to tell how all this will pan out for 2nd/3rd/4th owners; my subjective feeling is that it's probably a greater risk than the previous 1.2 engine (at least in Euro4/5 form), but not sufficient to stress about unduly.
If the worst were to happen and either the turbo or multiair units were to prove questionably reliable in the long term, there are so many of these engines out there that I'm sure there'd be modestly priced aftermarket solutions available.
So if you're looking over the life of the car, a 1.2 will likely cost you less in servicing and repairs (and almost certainly less in fuel), but IMO not enough to be a deal breaker - if you like the way the TA drives (it's not to everyone's taste and at least a few folks can't live with it), I'd say go for it.
From what I've seen posted, if I planned on keeping for the long term, I'd say versions with either auto climate control or dualogic gearboxes are a greater potential moneypit than the TA engine; I certainly wouldn't want to own a Panda/500 with either of these options once out of warranty.
The TA is a popular choice, but popularity is no guarantee of a trouble free ownership experience; BL produced 642,350 Allegros and that is frequently said to be the worst car ever sold in the UK, ever. Any new design has the potential to be a long term lemon and only time will tell for sure if the TA will have the durability of its predecessors.
But even the most successful cars and engines were at one time a completely new design and that, in itself, is no reason to suppose it won't prove reliable in the long term.