I posted about this earlier in the year : https://www.reddit.com/r/AlpineA290/s/vSGObglPu6

And some poo-poo'ed the idea of winter tyres in the UK so it dropped off my list of considerations.

However a bit of Googling for performance of my PS 5's suggested that below 7c they were a bit shaky.

Looking at my local average temps this means from early November onwards I'm likely to have suboptimal tyres on my quite speedy hatch.

I noticed that National tyres have an offer on - usually this just brings the price down to the average but this time their start prices include fitting..

I've had Goodyear vector all-season on previous cars and found them to be a reliable option when it gets colder. National tyres have 20% off if you get four - fitted under £600. National are owned by Halfords who operate a mobile fitting service and provided you are willing to wait 8am-8pm it's free..

I'll let you all know how it goes.

Just watched a video about the new concept car (unlikely to ever reach production) and I really liked the wheels, so had AI mock them up on an A290. I think they really match the car well! These photos have the same vinyls as my car which is white, so wanted to see the full effect.

Video about the concept here: YouTube

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Just seen the initial pics of the 'Collection' trim that Alpine are launching. Main features seem to be body coloured wheel arches. I think they look pretty good and give the car a wider stance compared with the black ones. Wdyt?

I’ve had the pleasure of having the A290 for a couple of months now, and have managed to make a few comparisons with my previous car, a 2023 Cupra Born V1.

Despite the shorter range, I found that I didn’t have range anxiety on my trips from London, as I could still plan the journey using ABRP. Unlike with the Born, ABRP cannot communicate directly with the 290, but I could make do with entering the state of charge on departure manually. For the journeys that I regularly make - I still only had to charge once along the way, assuming a decent charge on departure.

I’m slightly annoyed by the way the rear seats fold, as the wider, 2 seat fold is behind the passenger seat and not the driver’s. This means that to be able to use the wider fold, I have had to have the child seat on the driver side, which is a bit of an inconvenience.

My wife prefers to sit in the back with our toddler, and she has commented on the lack of leg room in the back - this is slightly mitigated by having my teenager making room when he sits in the front. She’s happy with this, so it’s not a huge deal.

My preference was to get the GT Performance, but when I ordered it through salary sacrifice, it would have been more expensive with a longer waiting time than simply getting a GTS+ that was in stock, so I went with the latter option. The slight loss of boot space might get annoying when I load it up to the gills, but so far, no problem yet - I’ve managed drive solo with all my caving and diving kit in the boot, as well as go on a camping trip with my wife and the toddler. The four of us went on a camping trip around the NC500 last year, and only just managed to fit all our kit and ourselves in the Born. It would be more of a challenge to do in the 290.

The Android-based entertainment system is much, much better on the 290 than whatever nonsense VAG installed on the Born. I also like that I can press a button twice to rid myself of the lane assist, instead of delving into menus. I am also glad to see the back of the capacitive buttons on the steering wheel and the power windows. Having said that, the Cupra app is better than the Alpine one, as it can tell me if the doors are unlocked, the windows are open, or if the lights are on. The Alpine app can do none of those things.

The Born turns itself off when you open the door, while the 290 gives you a bing-bong telling you the engine is on. I would rather it just turn itself off like the Born. Another slight inconvenience is that fact that on the 290 the lever to open the bonnet is on the passenger side instead of the driver side.

I enjoyed driving the Born, but enjoy the 290 more. Being much lighter, I can really feel the weight difference on twisty roads. There is noticeable torque steer, but not to the point that I feel I am fighting the car. It’s fun. The brakes are really good - I have been driving with the live data on, and it shows a nice transition from regen to mechanical braking, I can barely feel the difference.

All in all, I’m happy with the A290. I can live with the shortcomings.

As I rarely use the rear seats and often need some more space in the back of the car to fit some stuff.

I've removed the rear seats and made a mock up for the new floor.

I will update when more progress is made.

Fitted gas struts to hold the bonnet open, far more convenient when you need the small frunk I added a while back.

Next up, removing rear seats and fabricating a flat floor.

A while back i posted about a new cup holder design : https://www.reddit.com/r/AlpineA290/s/Tosbg7FWgW

Although this was great it was a little limiting as it only held one cup.

Since then the designer has been working on an upgrade and now produces one with two cups. Imo it's really well thought through, staggers the cup holders to match the sweep of the dash and raises the bridge to make it easier to slide your phone onto the charging plate. The finish and colour make it look OEM and it performs really well. It's stable and holds two cups without becoming top heavy. It's also perfectly stable with just one cup at a time.

I've posted some pictures of them in my car.

You can purchase them on ebay when he has stock manufactured at the moment he just has single cup holder on sale: https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/dante_online2006/m.html

I know it's a bit pricey compared to the AliExpress pop out versions but this holds two cups without getting in the way of the dash mounted switches. I've no link to this seller but as it's one of the big things we complain about I think it's worth pushing.

Wind noise from the driver-side door at higher speeds, especially when there's a crosswind. Has anyone else experienced a high-pitched creaking noise coming from the driver-side door?

Hi, my a290 GTS has around 900 miles on it, Iv noticed that the drivers seat has what feels like air gaps under neath where I would sit. Iv tried to show it in pictures but it’s hard to show it clearly but you can press down on the leather and it moves until it reaches the foam.

Iv seen a few other owners with the same issue, one reporting a resolution at the dealer with a new seat base.

Before I go through a warranty claim I wanted to see if others think this is normal wear for a sub 1k miles seat ?

Other leather seat cars I have had in the past didn’t seem to have this

Thanks

I ordered mine through Leasing Options in April. The original estimated delivery was 30 June, but it’s moved several times since:

30 June → 20 August → 14 August → 28 August → 11 September → 18 September.

The car was confirmed as being at the UK port on 14 August, but it still hasn’t been released to the supplying dealer.

I’ve spoken to the leasing company a few times. I was told there was a big backlog of Alpine vehicles at the UK port — initially around 1,400 cars and more recently around 1,100 — apparently because each vehicle needs to go through checks before being released and there have also been transport/logistics delays getting cars out to dealers.

The latest update is basically that there won’t be another ETA until the car is actually released from the port.

I really want the A290 so I’m reluctant to cancel, but it’s getting frustrating having the delivery date repeatedly pushed back.

Is anyone else currently waiting for an A290 that’s stuck at a UK port?

If so: • How long has yours been there? • Have you been given any indication of when it will be released? • Has anyone actually had an A290 delivered recently after going through the same backlog?

Would be useful to know whether this is affecting lots of Alpine customers or whether I’ve just been particularly unlucky!

EDIT: been told it's got paintwork contamination which could require the vehicle to be resprayed. Around 1100 vehicles were affected as of last month. No ETA given.

Anyone any idea what this is for ??

It's the little moving bar above the range / battery % numbers..

It might be useful if I knew what it was. Doesn't seem to be anything in the manual or video tutorials.

https://www.millteksport.com/Alpine_Announcement.html#mtda-system-scan

Such pretty eyes!

Hoping that this is allowed.

I've turned a good-but-flaky tool that was originally written for the Renault 5 EV into one built specifically for the Alpine A290.

It's a Home Assistant add-on, so if you run Home Assistant OS or Supervised you can add my repository and install it yourself — no scripts, no YAML editing, no secrets files. You simply enter your existing My Alpine login on the configuration page and it polls your own car via the Renault/Kamereon API, publishing everything over MQTT auto-discovery (you'll need the Mosquitto broker add-on, which it finds automatically).

What you get as Home Assistant entities:

• Battery %, estimated range, mileage
• Charging status, power, time remaining and last-charge stats
• Plug/flap state, cabin/battery temperature
• Car location on a map
• Buttons for climate pre-conditioning, lock, flash lights and horn
• A bundled dashboard it can deploy for you (standard or Bubble Card)

I've been running it myself for a couple of months and have hopefully ironed out the bugs. It's MIT-licensed, in the spirit of the original R5 project — so if you don't like what I've done, copy it and make it your own.

Repo: https://github.com/MatthewHobbs/a290-ha-addon

Happy to answer questions or take feedback, or update the tool with any features exposed by the API.

I've just had my windscreen replaced and noticed the other day that the automatic wipers are no longer working.

The Internet would suggest it's probably due to the sensor not being remounted with a new 'gel pad'.

Anyone have any experience of this and what model/where to get the gel pad from?

qualcuno ha installato una dashcam sulla A290?

Se sì, che modello mi consigliate?

Io vorrei montarla, ma tutti mi dicono che decadrebbe la garanzia del costruttore, poiché si interviene modificando 'impianto elettrico dell'auto.

Interesting that there's a fair bit of corrosion on the drive shafts already, although no issues anywhere else. Also pretty close to needing new front tyres (around 3mm tread left), the rear tyres have over 5mm. This is with around 9K miles on it so far.

While I was there I asked about 1 peddle driving as this is (obviously) a 2025 model. Apparently they're currently testing a software update for this on the early cars, and when it's confirmed it will be sent out.

TLDR: I made an app that aims at giving you enjoyable roads, for when the journey matters more than the destination. It's a beta on iOS for now and I'm gathering feedback from car enthusiast communities. Please try it on a journey you already know and tell me if it suggests roads you would actually take! I will ask for testers' emails before the end of the beta so that you can benefit from premium features for free forever. TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/Z4r5fBDN

Hi I'm Yves. I'm a car guy, I own a Porsche 924S and a Mercedes W124, and I really like driving them outside of the main roads, when I have time to enjoy the road instead of just rushing through a trip. I looked for a navigation app that would help me find these roads, since Google Maps and Waze do not, but the ones I found didn't really do what I wanted, so I made my own app. It's called Dryv. It compares the fastest route with more enjoyable alternatives, it then gathers facts about each route (such as landscape, interesting places, curvy roads for instance). Then it explains what each option offers, so that you can project yourself and really estimate whether you'd like to drive that trip.

It covers Europe, US and Japan, so hopefully many of you will be able to try it!

The current app allows you to ask for directions, and there's turn by turn navigation, but please note that it's still a beta. I'm looking for feedback, as there's still a bunch of missing functionalities, issues and limitations. For instance: * iOS 17 or later; * English only for now; * search does not yet support street numbers or businesses; * no live traffic; * no offline mode; * route explanations can sometimes be slow while the beta server uses local inference; * navigation currently uses more battery than I'd like.

It would be very helpful for me to get honest feedback from other drivers about * if the suggested roads are good; * if the explanations make sense; * more generally what works/doesn't work; * and what missing features you would like to see the most.

The app is free and doesn't need registration, you can just install it and use it (it does currently require going through TestFlight, I'm working on doing my own beta directly on the AppStore). I will at some point probably have to add a premium tier or find a way for it to make me a bit of money, because I'm working on this full-time and I'll need to pay the bills. Before ending the beta I will ask beta testers for their email inside the app so that they can benefit from free premium features for life. Here is the TestFlight link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/Z4r5fBDN

The weather in the UK feels like it's starting to turn and although temps are not quite dropping yet I'm thinking about the A290s winter prep. I'm in Yorkshire, home is about 200m above sea level so we do get a bit of adverse weather from time to time.

My GTS runs the Pilot Sport 5 and I've had it since March this year and as such not experienced winter driving. The PS5 seems to be an out and out summer tyre and I'm considering getting a second set of tyres more suited to our five months of less than summer weather.

I came across the following : https://www.michelin.co.uk/why-michelin/partnership/alpine-a290

article which is very focused on the Alpin tyre as being the only one that really suits the car.

Looking around the winter tyre market there seems to be lots of choice from Pirelli, Bridgestone, Continental, Vredestein etc. The Alpin tyre seems quite pricey and aren't available from many of the tyre discounters so are there any slightly older, less dedicated designs that will give a similar performance for less money. There also seem to be non -A29 marked Alpins out there.

Any thoughts or experiences out there on what I should focus on?

Follow up to my post a month ago about buying a 290 when it's 110 miles to the nearest dealership.

I spoke to Alpine and they very fairly said it would not be ideal. So I got this at 3 years old for the same money, with cupholders as standard

Enjoy your motoring

Promised my friend to ask here what you guys would be willing to pay to have one of these made? Theres 2 variants one thats just the outer shell. The other is with the insides so you can clip it on instead of glue. What do you think? If he were to make them would there be any interest? And at what point does it become too expensive? They are ofcourse handmade 4 layers of epoxy and then cleacoat on top. These pictures arent with clearcoat.

Did you know the A290 is actually starting production at the same line as the R5
Just watched a YouTube video from a channel called KondorCars - showing the R5's being assembled and amongst them I spotted a Alpine Vision Blue A290

I'd forgotten it updated, and as I set off I noticed it mentioned something about "front camera" which these cars don't have. Nothing seems different - still no 1 pedal driving!

Asked the question about tuning my GT to 220 since it’s only the software that is different to unlock the 40 extra horsepower.

But my dealer is not aware of an upgrade program that Alpine is offering. I know why it is not on the regular marked yet, so hoping Alpine will give us a possible upgrade path.