Thinking of taking on a Gransport next spring when my BMW lease is up. In looking at leasing a Maserati, the deprecation kills the deal. Why the massive depreciation? From my research the cars are reliable, have great warranties. The only issues seems to be clutch replacement every 20K or so and possible early F1 pump issues. Maintenance seems to run $4 to $5k per year. Still, the cars seem to resell terribly low. Makes me want to seriously consider a low-mileage one-year old Gransport at a 25-30% discount. I am wondering if there will be decent deals on the new 2006 leftovers in the spring of 2007?
The low resale is because there's too much mystery, not enough places for service, and doesn't fall into the mainstream herd mentality...which is a good thing. A low mileage year old car is as always the better financial decision.
Also, at least in the late 1980's, Maseratis had terrible reliability. They have a long way to go to shake that reputation. I'm thinking of a new Gransport Syder myself. Not getting any younger, time for some fun - damn the torpedoes.
I believe the standard warranty on a Maserati is 4 years / 50,000 miles. A 2 year old car would be a good deal with much lower price due to depreciation and 2 years still on the warranty.
if you check a month ago there was the deal on a $10k incentive on a 2006 GS if you sign up for their driving lessons. and yes, you can probably get a good deal on an 06 leftovers in 07 IF there are any remaining ones. you should enjoy the massive depreciation if they already depreciated for you and you got it at a good price.
Well..this is one reason..times this by other issues with the cars and you have your ansewer http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111965
The majority of us on maseratiforum.net have minimal problems with the car. I had no problem with the leather on my 2002 that I used as a daily driver and to be honest I didn't have any problems. The 02 Spyder was more reliable than the MVP 360 so far and the Spyder was used daily whereas the 360 is not.
FNA way overpriced the car initially. In 2002, the couple was NOT a $90k car. As a result, dealers ended up dumping them by selling them at or below dealer cost just to get rid of them. This, of course, starts a downward spiral. In my case, about a year and a half ago, I brought a 2004 spyder with 8k miles for $65k. This was a car with a sticker of $104k that the first owner brought for $85k. After keeping it for 6 months, I sold it for $65k because I was concerned that it might drop another $20k in two more years. The sad part is that the current Grandsport is a $90k car. However, everyone is afraid to buy one because (1) Ferrari had to drop Maserati, and (2) the massive depreciation you mention. Dale
the saddest part is there are people who believes the car is not worth the money because "Ferrari had to drop Maserati". if anything, the current coupe/spyder/gs were engineered and made with the strongest influence and association with Ferrari.
Did anyone here buy a GS when they first came out? (Late 04) Because the dealer was willing to make negotiation room on the Coupe and spy, but wouldn't budge on the GS. Paid 111.
If you buy the Maser for the "right" price (ie, for a decent discount as most folks do), depreciation %-wise is not materially different than that of MOST other high end cars. Go buy an SL550 or 997 and trade it in a year later, there's some massive depreciation for ya too. Depreciation isn't that different from most BMWs, Porsches, MBs, Jaguar, AM, etc.
I think part of the reason for the large depreciation was the tie Ferrari/Masererati management created between Maserati sales and Ferrari allocations. Dealers were incented to move the Masers in higher numbers; in exchange, they could receive more allocations for the higher-profit Ferraris. The only way to 'force' more units into the slowly growing new Maserati market was to drop the sell price. In turn, that action helped kill the market value for used Masers. Good idea that had unintended consequences... My $0.02 (depreciated down to $0.01).
