Alfa Romeo Repair: Alfa 147 2001 - Selespeed problems, automatic gearboxes, harrison electronics

Question
Hi

I have owned an Alfa 147 2.0 selespeed for 6 months now.  It has done 42,000.  I barely use the car as it is massively unreliable.  The car often sticks in gear or kicks into neutral and will not go into gear. I recently took the car to a company specialising in automatic gearboxes. I spent £500 on repairs.  They claim to have done some clean up work and thought they had solved the problem.  They didnt!  The problem has returned When i try to put the car into 1st gear, it kicks straight back into Neutral and wont even go into reverse.  I am concerned that i may end up spending a lot of the money and never really solving the problem.  Not sure what i should do - i will struggle to sell it in its current state.  As an aside, the battery has just gone flat.  The battery also went flat when it was in the garage recently.  Could this have anything to do with it?  

Thanks for your help. Much appreciated.

Nick Harrison.

Answer
Electronics need clean electricity. A sulfating battery or a battery that puts an excessive load on the alternator can often cause confusion in the ECU (the brain). You should also have the output of the alternator checked, including the ac ripple that rides on the dc voltage.  This very well could be the cause of your problems.