My 2003 Maserati Syder

You should get more life out of the F1 clutch than that.

Here are a couple of thoughts:

Could it be all the steep hill holding at red lights in the S.F. area?

Do you let your car warm up before driving it? An F1 clutch slips like crazy in the initial minutes after start-up. I always wondered if that would cause rapid clutch wear if someone backed up or drove the car right away.

Most of us with Ferraris let the car idle until the water temp needle starts to move off of the left stop in the gauge. This usually only takes a few minutes. Then, we take it easy on shifting for a block or two until the oil temp gauge starts to move off the left stop. In a Ferrari this is shifting below 4500 rpm - 5000 rpm, instead of revving it up to anywhere near the redline on the tach (redline is 8500 rpm in my case).

 

Well-known Maserati issue, clutches will keep going out as I haven't heard there is a fix. Want to see a car depreciate as fast as a dotcom collapses? Welcome to the Maserati market. One guy on a forum had a 2005 Grandsport with less than 10k miles ($118k MSRP) get a trade in offer of $45k.

 

now that's some serious depreciation

 

It was also an offer from a dealer who was not interested in having the car on his lot.

 

The BMW-Mercedes-Jag market where Maserati is competing just doesn't have the stomach for those kinds of costs, apparently.

The Ferrari-Lambo segment seems to expect them as a matter of course.

 

The dealer could wholesale it out the next day....plus the guy didn't get offers much above that, so he decided he is going to ride it all the way down.

The second the 2003 spyders get into the $20s I'm a buyer (manual trans only). I'm thinking that will be around Jan 2009

 

Try below, best maser forum I know of and was very helpful to me:

http://www.************.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=7

 

I've heard that some people tend to rest/touch the paddles when driving and that it is like riding the clutch.

 

Interesting, but highly unlikely. The paddles don't have that kind of control on the clutch. Its either a shift or not. If this were true then paddle technique would impact smoothness, and it does not.

best,
dsd