schell70
Member
- Messages
- 318
Thought this may help out any ‘newbs’ looking to buy a GT – it’s my experience of the 1st year of ownership with an indication of costs. Sorry it’s ended up being a bit of a novel…..
I’d been looking on and off for 1yr and then the financial stars aligned so I started to get serious! Looking to spend up to £25k there was a fair bit of choice but not really in the colour combo’s I wanted (black with black interior) – anyhow that soon went out the window.
I looked at a few but some things just weren’t right, either I didn’t get a good feeling because of details, or the seller/dealer was an ****!
Anyhow, something had been bugging me – the cheapest GT on sale at the time – it looked a little rough with an unpainted headlight washer cover and kerbed alloys but there was something honest about it and the dealer was a specialist in classic & sports although pure ‘Sales’.
Should you ever buy the cheapest car for sale! But buy the cheapest house in a good street – that works right? Oh, and it had been for sale for over 6 months, must be up for deal! Or there was something majorly wrong with it.
Well I called him up and after some chat and the honesty of it not being pristine, we did a deal on the phone including a PEx on my M135i subject to me viewing.
On viewing, it wasn’t actually too bad – it was clear that it had been used as a daily driver for most of its life and only recently become a garage queen. This I took as a good omen and with 83k on the clock and a full history it looked ok.
No sign of having its variator caps modified but I was already assuming I would need to do this at this price point.
Did I mention it was a 2008 in Grigio Alfieri with a RED, yes RED interior – so much for black/black
Well the deal was done with an extra £500 off because it only had one key – which gave a final price of £18,500 and with my BMW I only had to cough up £6000, not a bad entry to Maserati ownership.
Having bought it and then experienced the dreaded start up clatter after it had been left standing for a week or more (only a second or so) I then got it inspected by Matt – surely that’s the wrong way round right? Anyhow it could have been much worse – caught the front subframe just in time and a few niggles to sort out, plus I decided to have the end cap mod done as a precaution for the minor clatter.
So here is the damage for Year1:
Purchase Price £18,500 (Sept 2019)
Variator Cap Mod, 4 x wheel refurb, subframe & chassis corrosion protection, replace rear pads/droplinks/power steering hose, remove and refurb front & rear ARB’s, geometry plus associated extras. Oil & Filter, Brake Fluid & Coolant change.
£3,000 ish – Man maths already active!
So that I call my purchase total - £21,500
Now for the odds & sods:
Rear parking sensor £12 (Skoda part)
Custom made X-Pipe £200 fitted
Paint for parking sensor & headlight washer cover £24 (DIY)
Cabin filter £18 (DIY)
New Black centre caps for wheels from HR Owen £40 (DIY)
Pair of 2nd hand backboxes as one had a rattle £250 from Ebay
Sale of original centre box +£110
Insurance £520
Road Tax £575
Total running costs £1,529
Also, this is a partial daily driver so I can claim 2000 miles @ 45ppm for business use which makes it even better value.
Total mileage 4000 for the year (Le Mans Classic cancellation & Covid didn’t help that)
All in its pretty good – if you ignore insurance & road tax it’s peanuts!
True, I’m reasonably handy with a socket set and have fixed a few niggles myself (headlight washer not working, boot lid switch, superglued the mirror switch knob)
Soon it will need spark plugs @ £80 and an air filter @ £65 (will do myself) then next Service with Matt & crew not due till Feb 22
Now with the X-Pipe, it pops and bangs on the overrun and generally sounds great
So, yes - its affordable and great fun too – if you’re still thinking then DO IT!!
Note: I take no responsibility for one costing you a fortune – maybe I’m just lucky so far
I’d been looking on and off for 1yr and then the financial stars aligned so I started to get serious! Looking to spend up to £25k there was a fair bit of choice but not really in the colour combo’s I wanted (black with black interior) – anyhow that soon went out the window.
I looked at a few but some things just weren’t right, either I didn’t get a good feeling because of details, or the seller/dealer was an ****!
Anyhow, something had been bugging me – the cheapest GT on sale at the time – it looked a little rough with an unpainted headlight washer cover and kerbed alloys but there was something honest about it and the dealer was a specialist in classic & sports although pure ‘Sales’.
Should you ever buy the cheapest car for sale! But buy the cheapest house in a good street – that works right? Oh, and it had been for sale for over 6 months, must be up for deal! Or there was something majorly wrong with it.
Well I called him up and after some chat and the honesty of it not being pristine, we did a deal on the phone including a PEx on my M135i subject to me viewing.
On viewing, it wasn’t actually too bad – it was clear that it had been used as a daily driver for most of its life and only recently become a garage queen. This I took as a good omen and with 83k on the clock and a full history it looked ok.
No sign of having its variator caps modified but I was already assuming I would need to do this at this price point.
Did I mention it was a 2008 in Grigio Alfieri with a RED, yes RED interior – so much for black/black
Well the deal was done with an extra £500 off because it only had one key – which gave a final price of £18,500 and with my BMW I only had to cough up £6000, not a bad entry to Maserati ownership.
Having bought it and then experienced the dreaded start up clatter after it had been left standing for a week or more (only a second or so) I then got it inspected by Matt – surely that’s the wrong way round right? Anyhow it could have been much worse – caught the front subframe just in time and a few niggles to sort out, plus I decided to have the end cap mod done as a precaution for the minor clatter.
So here is the damage for Year1:
Purchase Price £18,500 (Sept 2019)
Variator Cap Mod, 4 x wheel refurb, subframe & chassis corrosion protection, replace rear pads/droplinks/power steering hose, remove and refurb front & rear ARB’s, geometry plus associated extras. Oil & Filter, Brake Fluid & Coolant change.
£3,000 ish – Man maths already active!
So that I call my purchase total - £21,500
Now for the odds & sods:
Rear parking sensor £12 (Skoda part)
Custom made X-Pipe £200 fitted
Paint for parking sensor & headlight washer cover £24 (DIY)
Cabin filter £18 (DIY)
New Black centre caps for wheels from HR Owen £40 (DIY)
Pair of 2nd hand backboxes as one had a rattle £250 from Ebay
Sale of original centre box +£110
Insurance £520
Road Tax £575
Total running costs £1,529
Also, this is a partial daily driver so I can claim 2000 miles @ 45ppm for business use which makes it even better value.
Total mileage 4000 for the year (Le Mans Classic cancellation & Covid didn’t help that)
All in its pretty good – if you ignore insurance & road tax it’s peanuts!
True, I’m reasonably handy with a socket set and have fixed a few niggles myself (headlight washer not working, boot lid switch, superglued the mirror switch knob)
Soon it will need spark plugs @ £80 and an air filter @ £65 (will do myself) then next Service with Matt & crew not due till Feb 22
Now with the X-Pipe, it pops and bangs on the overrun and generally sounds great
So, yes - its affordable and great fun too – if you’re still thinking then DO IT!!
Note: I take no responsibility for one costing you a fortune – maybe I’m just lucky so far