Alfa Romeo Giulietta running costs are fairly agreeable. Clearly it’s best to go for the 105bhp 1.6-litre diesel since combined fuel consumption is a very impressive 64.2mpg. If you want more grunt go for the 60.1mpg 170bhp 2.0-litre diesel, but if you are pure petrol diehard then you’ll go for the 170bhp 1.4-litre which returns 48.7mpg – even better than the lower powered 120bhp petrol that returns 44.1mpg.

The Cloverleaf’s fuel consumption isn’t too onerous – you get an average of 37.2mpg if you don’t drive like a person possessed all the time.

Alfa Romeo Giulietta emissions, especially in terms of carbon dioxide, are fairly low. The 1.6-litre diesel emits 114g/km of CO2, which means low road tax bills, but the rest of the range isn’t quite so kind. The 2.0-litre diesel emits 124g/km, the 170bhp 1.4-litre petrol MultiAir, 134g/km, the 120bhp 1.4-litre149g/km and the Cloverleaf 177g/km.

The new 150bhp 2.0-litre diesel added to the range for 2014 emits a very creditable – and tax-friendly – 110g/km.

You might expect Alfa Romeo Giulietta reliability to cause you problems since Alfa doesn’t have a particularly good record. In customer satisfaction surveys in the UK, Alfas have scored well down the tables and the manufacturer hasn’t performed particularly well either. In the past Alfa Romeo has had problems with brittle running gear and in two of the cars we’ve tested we heard some creaks coming from inside the dashboard as we hit particularly rutted roads.

Alfa says that it has done a lot of work to iron out problems, however.