2024 Alfa Romeo Giulia Veloce Review: A Charmer Let Down by Gremlins

Although the Giulia has been on sale for several years now, it’s still not a common sight on our roadways. Despite its age, the Giulia’s design still looks fresh, modern, and every bit as good as the day it was first shown to the public.

Finished in obligatory Alfa Rossa (red) exterior paint, our Giulia test unit received plenty of compliments during our week behind the wheel. As the mid-tier Veloce trim, it features what Alfa Romeo refers to as sport designed bumpers front and rear. The exterior lighting is fully LED and there are integrated headlamp washers. At the back is a pair of black exhaust tips, as the quad exhaust set-up is appropriately reserved for the more powerful Quadrifoglio.

The Veloce sets itself apart from lesser Giulia’s with a standard dual pane sunroof and 19-inch alloy wheels featuring Alfa’s ubiquitous sport five-hole design. Available in two colours and widths, our tester includes the upgraded, larger option.

The wider alloys are included with the summer tire package that ditches the standard 225/40R19 all-season tires for a staggered set. Up front are still 225/40R19 tires, but now with grippier summer rubber. At the back are larger 255/35R19 tires.

Along with an incredibly quick 11.8:1 steering ratio, the upgraded tires go a long way to provide excessive grip in most driving situations. The Giulia handles at a similar level as its German competitors, the BMW 330i and Mercedes-Benz C300. The Veloce trim comes standard with a limited slip differential and weighs in at 3,522 pounds (1,598 kg).

As full disclosure, my week behind the wheel was much different than a usual test drive, as I had the Giulia while on vacation in Florida. This meant it was always full of family members, so I never really got to push towards its handling limits. However, thanks to wayward sun-soaked drivers, I did utilize the quick reacting 13.0-inch front and 12.5-inch rear brake rotors more often than I'd like.

Our biggest surprise was how well the Giulia balances ride comfort and responsiveness. We can feel everything the car is doing underneath us, but the suspension isn’t punishing over road imperfections. It’s perfectly comfortable on a variety of road conditions, yet ready to rock around an on-ramp at excessive speeds.

Not including the frantic Quadrifoglio, every other trim of the 2024 Alfa Romeo Giulia comes standard with a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. It produces 280 horsepower and 306 pound feet of torque.

That’s more grunt in both categories compared to either the BMW 330i or the Mercedes-Benz C300. The extra dollop of power is noticed especially during highway passing maneuvers. From a standstill though, the power advantage is less noticeable. There’s a bit of a delay until the engine unleashes all 280 ponies.

Even at full throttle though, the Giulia is too darn quiet. Although this is just the four-cylinder, we wish there was a valved exhaust option for an increased engine note, like found in the Quadrifoglio. This is an Alfa Romeo after all, and they are meant to flashy and boisterous.

Those concerned about efficiency, The Veloce Q2 is officially rated at 24 mpg city and 33 mpg highway. In Canada, the Veloce AWD offers 10.5 L/100 km in the city and 7.7 L/100 km on the highway.

In the United State, the Giulia Veloce can come with all-wheel drive (Q4) or rear-wheel drive (Q2) like our tester. Canadian models only come with all four wheels powered. Regardless of country, all versions include an eight-speed automatic transmission. As well, like most modern sports sedans, the Giulia Veloce includes selectable drive modes. Alfa Romeo uses a system called DNA which includes three drive modes: Dynamic, Natural, and Advance Efficiency

Two large paddle shifters are mounted on either side of the steering column. In Dynamic mode, upshifting the transmission via the paddles is incredibly quick, almost dual-clutch gearbox like. There is more of a delay when downshifting, but the paddles are more useful and enjoyable than I expected in the Veloce.

While on the topic of more useful, the Veloce also makes a surprisingly capable and comfortable family sedan. During our week with it, we took a day trip from Tampa to Orlando to visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Back in the Clearwater area, we drove to plenty of MLB spring training games. During most voyages there were four or five occupants on board.

Although that may seem uncomfortably cramped, as long as a few rear seat passengers included children, and adults were under six-feet tall, the Giulia fits folks better than expected. The specifications of 38.6-inches (980 mm) and 37.6-inches (955 mm) of headroom front and rear, as well as 42.4-inches (1,077 mm) and 35.1-inches (892 mm) of front and rear legroom may not sound like much. But in practice, it works. Even after a 3-hour straight drive none of the five occupants were complaining about comfort. The 13.4 cubic foot (379 L) trunk is also quite useful thanks to its large opening.

Up front, the driver enjoys a 14-way power seat, while the front passenger gets a 12-way power seat. Both front seats and outer rear seats are heated, as is the steering wheel. Missing from the options list though are ventilated front seats, and to a lesser deal, massage function.

Overall, the look and design of the digital driver information center received a lot of praise, while the rest of the interior seems surprisingly conservative for an Italian sedan, except for those red leather sport seats of course.

Safety is well covered in the Giulia, with standard adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, front-collision warning, lane departure warning, and much more. Added to the option sheet on our tester is the Active Assist Plus Package, that includes blind-spot assist, lane keep assist, driver attention alert, speed assist, traffic sign recognition and more.

The car also has all the technology one should expect from a mid-trim small luxury sedan. There's a 12.3-inch customizable driver information center, an 8.8-inch infotainment touchscreen, 14 ambient lights, wireless phone charging, dual auto climate control, and more. Our tester also included the optional Premium Interior Sound Package, which adds leather to the dash and doors, as well as a 14-speaker Harmon Kardon audio system. We do wish that the audio system and infotainment unit used a more direct version of Uconnect. The system included in the Giulia is not all that user friendly by comparison.

Now on to those dastardly gremlins. Upon receiving our tester, we noticed right away the center control dial as well as the flanking Home and Settings buttons were completely inoperable. Even after hard resetting the infotainment system, they never sprung back to life. It was the same story for the center console’s volume dial/selector. Oddly, the DNA selector dial that shares the same space worked flawlessly. I researched if this was a common issue for Giulia’s or a one off. The answer is it’s neither. There are just a handful of owners out there with various issues regarding the center console buttons and dials.

Another annoyance was every time we turned the car off at night, it would incessantly ding, flashing a message on the driver information center that we had left our lights on. This, despite the fact the headlights were on the Auto setting. Even if we manually turned the headlight dial to ‘Off’, the headlights remained on, and the car continued to chime. Once locked, the lights do eventually go off thankfully.

As a proteinate detractor of automatic high beams, I dug through the infotainment menus and found the toggle to turn off the automatic headlight high beams. Even though the infotainment system displayed that this feature was indeed turned off, the driver’s information center always kept the auto high beam icon lit up, indicating they were on.

Finally, on our second last day with the car, on a drive home from a baseball game, cruising along on 30 mph city streets, the check engine light came on. The only real detriment that occurred was the disabling of the auto stop/start system. After another 30 or so miles of driving, the engine light cleared, and it turned off.

A 2024 Alfa Romeo Giulia starts at a price of $44,935 (all prices included destination charges) in the United States. As tested, our optioned-up Veloce Q2 came in at $56,460. In Canada an entry-level 2024 Alfa Romeo Giulia AWD starts at $60,690. Our tester came in at $67,790.

This puts it right on top of equivalent small German luxury sedans, and honestly, the Giulia has all the makings to be a worthy Italian alternative to the usual suspects. But with the various issues that plagued our drive, we can’t recommend the car as is. Could this specific Giulia's issues be a one off? Was there prior abuse to the car? It’s hard to speculate.

In the end, we do understand the appeal of the Giulia, problems or no problems. Our best advice if one really has their heart set on a Giulia? Go lease one. Take out a two- or three-year lease and see how the car holds up. If it’s trouble free, it can always be bought out at the end of the lease.

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