Alfa Romeo Tonale SUV - Reliability & safety

For years, the perception of Alfa Romeo has been that its cars are soulful and characterful but more likely to go wrong than German rivals. These days, we’re not sure reliability worries will blight Alfa Romeo ownership; not every car will be issue-free but many owners may never need to visit the maintenance bay unexpectedly. We’ve heard reports from plenty of owners of fault-free cars and no-hassle motoring.

Alfa Romeo Tonale reliability

Alfa Romeo didn’t feature in our 2022 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, but in 2020 the brand scored a top-10 finish out of 30 carmakers ranked. Handling and reliability were praised, even if the percentage of owners that reported issues was slightly higher than average.

Audi and BMW didn’t fare particularly well in our 2022 rundown, coming 22nd and 16th out of 29 brands respectively.

The Tonale uses a number of shared parts, including its underpinnings and engines, so hopefully any common issues have already been ironed out.

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Safety

The Alfa Romeo Tonale earned an impressive five-star rating in Euro NCAP safety tests despite lacking centre airbags, so it’s amongst the top SUVs currently on the market here. Standard safety safety equipment list includes adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist and autonomous emergency braking (AEB). These can combine to give the Tonale a level of semi-autonomous driving capability, which should make motorway driving a more relaxed experience. You may need to change lanes yourself, though.

The AEB system recognises pedestrians and cyclists as well as other vehicles, while other available features include a 360-degree surround-view camera for easy parking and warning systems that monitor your blind spots and check that the area behind you is clear when you’re reversing.