Hi Everyone: My wife loves the look of convertible Maseratis (the four seat GranCambrio convertible in particular). Used Maseratis seem to be quite the bargain and I know that their technology is (at least somewhat) derived from Ferrari tech. So my question is this...how are they? Not performance wise...but quality and reliability? I am hearing VERY mixed opinions. And I am not sure if the bad comments concern older models...or if they are just hit-or-miss. Also...maintenance costs. Are they Ferrari expensive?...BMW expensive? While I don't expect her to be putting 20k on the car per year, I can imagine 10k per year. It would almost be a daily driver during the warm weather...hence my concern for reliability and maintenance. Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks. Brian
Hi I have a grancabrio, have had it 3 years from new and have done 6.5k miles total in it It's had to go back to the dealer a few times with battery issues and the interior trim has started to fall off. The passenger electric seat has stopped working as well It's a nice car to drive, but I would probably not buy another Maserati to be honest. I expect higher build quality in a 100k car. Having said that I just bought a 1990 testarossa! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
I am going to say this in the most supportive way. Run like the wind from the brand. They are nothing but trouble. They suck you in with styling and the whole Italian-Ferrari-alternative thing. But it's a con job. Your patience will be tested repeatedly by electrical gremlins. The engine will be fine, but things around it will fail. Finally, like me, you will beg someone to take it off your hands at any cost. If you are lucky, it will cost you only a few grand. My last relationship ended when the brand deserted the US market leaving me holding the bag for repairs, warranty coverage and parts availability. Never again.
My wife has a 2009 GTS with F1 super fast - put about 11,000 miles on it and never a problem - been on the track also - had a 2005 Maserati also with no problems
I love my Maserati, and I know it is not the best quality. It has Magna flow exhaust and sounds really, really good. Last week I was riding with my friend in his Dodge Stealth and he said you know I was reading this car actually has better performance numbers than a Porsche 911 (I doubted this to be true) but I said yes but it is not a Porsche. I said "Like my Maserati for example, I know a BMW is way better quality car, but when you pull up to a hotel or a party nobody says Oh wow a BMW"
Personally I had a Biturbo. Too many people I have run across with late models with similar complaints as mine from years ago. Pretty styling, decent engine but nagging failures and issues. Mostly electronics.
May I suggest you go to Maserati Life Forum... You will get a better feel by owners who have been posting for a while. Good luck.
I too had a Biturbo, and I know they were crap, but it was entertaining when it was running. I don't think you can compare modern day Maseratis to the Biturbos. Lots of things changed when Ferrari took over... I'm also somewhat interested in getting a coupe (I've got two kids) as a daily driver...though I think I only put 2k miles on my DD last year.
The interiors peel and fall apart. The interior in my 2009 was replaced and the now out of warranty replacements are showing some peeling again. I have had a bit of issues with the transmission and the engine but both were fixed under warranty. I have had the car since new and it is now 5 years old. It is my 90% of the time daily driver but only gets about 6k miles a year on it. Overall I could recommend the car to a car person. My wife complained about issues with a Cayenne and would have gone nuts dealing with Maserati service. The new cars are much better but still have more issues than the German competitors.
You're not honestly comparing biturbo era quality to anything maser have made in the last dozen years are you? There is zero comparison, since 2002 Masers have been practically a different company in terms of quality and reliability. I hear if the occasional F1 gearbox issue also common in Ferrari's as well as people whining about clutch costs but other than that I've heard of no issues.
+1 Except that I still have my Biturbo. I sorted it so that it turned into a long term fun and very comfortable car. It has 70K miles on it now though it's been a hobby car since about 40K miles and that was about 1990 too. Yes the newer cars are light years better vehicles. Much better than the old GT cars as well. I can believe they have a more delicate interior than a BMW, Audi or Mercedes. So do Ferraris which also get sticky interiors.
Good for you...I've always loved the quircky styling of the Biturbos & 228s. Back in the day, I wanted a Shamal (sp?). Maybe a Coupe will fill that need...those V8s sound wonderful. Not to hijack this thread, but post up some pix.
You definitely can't compare modern Maserati to the BiTurbo. I like the BiTurbo a lot, but they were very unreliable. Modern Maserati's are reliable but quirky. You might get a warning light for no apparent reason, and then it disappears. Our 2003 has been very reliable. The F1 pump has been the only significant issue. The pump motor itself isn't expensive and it's easy to replace, but dealers charge $$$ to replace them. A 6-speed will have fewer issues. They definitely can be a reliable DD for a car person, but might be too quirky for a non car person. My wife loves driving her 2003, but we are probably going to replace it with a 996 (which she had before the Maser) because the Porsche was like a Honda maintenance-wise.
As delivered by the factory here in the USA they were actually worse than that! But if you sorted them out and removed that idiotic emissions system which also didn't function properly on the QPIII, the Bora & Khamsin before that then the only big long term issue was the annoying fuse box. A trait shared with certain Ferraris of the same era. Mine has failed and left me stranded twice so far. The first one was a doozy (non Duesenberg related) which after a long session of great fun flogging the thing around at high rpms on Skyline BLVD HWAY 92 in the SF Bay Area. The cam belt delaminated on the back side, jammed and bent 2 out 3 valves on each cylinder while puttering around in a Safeway parking lot! That was 1987 and I rebuilt that out of warranty motor myself with Al Burtoni doing the heads. And 27 years later I've had to adjust but one valve in all that time plus a bunch of cambelts. It's now at 70K miles. I also did a LOT of upgrades to the car. The second stranding was three weeks ago when I attempted to drive it from my storage garage to my house to replace the inner ball joints. Something I shouldn't have even attempted but the tow was free so it worked out pretty well. The car has been all over the west coast on lots of very long drives some of them at incredibly high speed sustained drives and it's been great. I tracked it for several years here in the NE and retired it from that duty once I bought track only car. Not bad for Maserati's probably most hated model ever. Too bad they delivered them so poorly to begin with. But it's no BMW, it's exotic and the assembly was never as good as the German cars. No Italian cars from that era were. But jeezus it's been fun and very comfortable to boot. Today Maserati is making a push to do just that. Given their other late models and even the improvements seen on the 2002-2005 V8 Coupes I think this is the closest they've ever been. Certainly worth the try but it will be a bit more of an adventure as they can't possibly have the same service network that the big boys have now. So do you want to be bored and safe or excited with a bit of a risk? Thank god they got rid of that Ferrari gearbox which never should have made it onto an everyday street car. Now you even have 4WD! And let's not forget that with the introduction of the 2002 Maserati Coupe and it's low maintenance motor Ferrari got dragged into the modern era as well! Both marques won.
More like a 320I without the I to begin with. Detomaso directly copied stuff from the 320 and a Mercedes at the time. But the engine was a brand new bespoke design with originally was going to come without turbos but they could get enough HP out of it so they retrenched and offered the Biturbo motor. There's an interesting story about this floating around on audio from the chief engineer at that time about how the engineers were experimenting with a turbocharged Merak (surreptitiously and certainly without DeTomaso's approval) when one day he spotted the car and insisted upon a drive. That's what sold him so the story goes. That Merak is in the Panini collection today.
Well, I was trying to be tactful You are a brave man -- it takes true automotive spirit to sort out those cars. I like them a lot -- very understated styling, very high performance for their time, and I also liked the interior (which I recall as being super plush). It had all the right ingredients -- too bad it wasn't better executed.
What did DeTomaso deliver here in the USA which WAS well executed? Panteras too were a mess when they first arrived. The 89 & 90 Biturbos were better and a LOT more money because they complete leather interiors but it was too late. Those cars had their foibles as well which can be sorted. The Marelli FI system used on all of them is ... well ... not world class by the time they were using it. The carb based cars, like mine, can be set up to perform quite nicely but it should have been a fuel injected car to begin with. DeTomaso was being too cheap for the market he was attempting to break into.
