GranTurismo Running Costs

[Funkstar De Luxe]

I'm now in the market for a GranTurismo (specifically 2009ish MC Shift, 4.7).

I'm told stories of 2k per annum running costs, which is high, but manageable considering how much we'd love the car.

My question is, specifically WHAT is that 2k being spent on? How frequently are expensive parts dropping off these cars? I don't give a f about resale value, so I intend to do all my own servicing - likely yearly, regardless of what Maserati recommend. I'll also get myself the appropriate dealer tool device. My intention is to keep it long term

[Soleith]

Phenomenal cars, I had a 2016 Sport and loved it so much/still miss it from time to time, I don't remember it costing that much to look after, I think I spent probably a little over £1k/year but I had it from new and only had it through 2 services so probably didn't stumble across a big one in my ownership time, as such average cost probably a bit higher than my experience.

Rock solid mechanical reliability with the usual exception of Italian exotics having slightly less than stellar electronics when the batteries get low. Drive it regularly and suspect it'll be fine.

[m4tti]

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[Joe5y]

Have a look at my write up - seems to be the same as the spec you're are suggesting.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=&t=1959909

In short, its been brilliant for the 2 years I've had it. What is your budget and where are you based?

[tokyo_mb]

I have a 2015 MC Stradale. I don't add up the running costs as that would spoil the pleasure, but I can get to £2k a year relatively quickly. Remember these are £100k cars and the parts costs reflect that, not the very reasonable prices that they can be bought for after a few years and tens of thousands of miles

The rough numbers below are guesstimates based on what I have seen/experienced. Others more knowledgeable may correct me on some of the specifics, but if you go in with your eyes open you will not get a nasty shock later.

Annual costs	Description
£695	Road tax
£lots	As many miles as you do at no more than 20mpg (you might do better than this, but probably won't)
£750-£1,000	Servicing, every 2 years, but you probably want to do an oil change more regularly; major service is every 4 years (every second service). This annual cost assumes you use an independent and you don't do some of the more expensive/more optional things every major service (e.g. Lambda sensors)

Periodic costs	Frequency	Description
£4,500	roughly every 40k miles provided driven sensitively	Clutch, if an MC Shift (F1 gearbox, indicated by 1/R buttons and absence of automatic gear lever) car
£450	every 2-3 years, more frequent if alignment not right (which it often isn't)	Tyres front - based on Michelin Pilot Sport 4S
£700	every 2-3 years	Tyres rear - based on Michelin Pilot Sport 4S
£1,250	Maybe once every 4-5 years.	Wheel bearing replacement when ABS sensor fails - which they do. Symptoms being warning lights ABS / ESC / parking brake off. The warning lights could just be low battery voltage, but if they persist once that is fixed it is likely to be a failing ABS sensor, which necessitates replacement of the whole hub assembly.
£1,500	Assume one every 3-5 years	Front suspension kit. These are big, heavy cars and the bushes fail necessitating replacement of arms as a whole.
c.£750	Assume one every 5-6 years	Rear suspension kit/bushes.
£ multiple thousands	c.10 years	Subframe repair or replacement if you/previous owners haven't kept up on rust prevention. More likely on an older car such as that you are considering. Do get a pre-purchase inspection from someone knowledgeable if you don't want a nasty surprise.
£ ?	Periodically	Paint. After several thousand miles you will get some road rash on the wheel arches, front grill strakes etc. which you will likely want to get sorted periodically.

This ignores all the other stuff I could have mentioned: new batteries, brake discs and pads, wheel refurbs etc. Obviously if you can do elements of your own servicing the costs would come down, and if you use a main dealer they would go up considerably.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

tokyo_mb said:

I have a 2015 MC Stradale. I don't add up the running costs as that would spoil the pleasure, but I can get to £2k a year relatively quickly. Remember these are £100k cars and the parts costs reflect that, not the very reasonable prices that they can be bought for after a few years and tens of thousands of miles

The rough numbers below are guesstimates based on what I have seen/experienced. Others more knowledgeable may correct me on some of the specifics, but if you go in with your eyes open you will not get a nasty shock later.

Annual costs	Description
£695	Road tax
£lots	As many miles as you do at no more than 20mpg (you might do better than this, but probably won't)
£750-£1,000	Servicing, every 2 years, but you probably want to do an oil change more regularly; major service is every 4 years (every second service). This annual cost assumes you use an independent and you don't do some of the more expensive/more optional things every major service (e.g. Lambda sensors)

Periodic costs	Frequency	Description
£4,500	roughly every 40k miles provided driven sensitively	Clutch, if an MC Shift (F1 gearbox, indicated by 1/R buttons and absence of automatic gear lever) car
£450	every 2-3 years, more frequent if alignment not right (which it often isn't)	Tyres front - based on Michelin Pilot Sport 4S
£700	every 2-3 years	Tyres rear - based on Michelin Pilot Sport 4S
£1,250	Maybe once every 4-5 years.	Wheel bearing replacement when ABS sensor fails - which they do. Symptoms being warning lights ABS / ESC / parking brake off. The warning lights could just be low battery voltage, but if they persist once that is fixed it is likely to be a failing ABS sensor, which necessitates replacement of the whole hub assembly.
£1,500	Assume one every 3-5 years	Front suspension kit. These are big, heavy cars and the bushes fail necessitating replacement of arms as a whole.
c.£750	Assume one every 5-6 years	Rear suspension kit/bushes.
£ multiple thousands	c.10 years	Subframe repair or replacement if you/previous owners haven't kept up on rust prevention. More likely on an older car such as that you are considering. Do get a pre-purchase inspection from someone knowledgeable if you don't want a nasty surprise.
£ ?	Periodically	Paint. After several thousand miles you will get some road rash on the wheel arches, front grill strakes etc. which you will likely want to get sorted periodically.

This ignores all the other stuff I could have mentioned: new batteries, brake discs and pads, wheel refurbs etc. Obviously if you can do elements of your own servicing the costs would come down, and if you use a main dealer they would go up considerably.

This was excellent, thank you so much! Not as bad as I was expecting to be fair, although 40k miles clutch changes are a shock to me.

[tokyo_mb]

Funkstar De Luxe said:

This was excellent, thank you so much! Not as bad as I was expecting to be fair, although 40k miles clutch changes are a shock to me.

Clutch changes - big heavy car, automated single clutch manual gearbox, tendency to slip the clutch when crawling in traffic / reversing etc. If you spend your time in slow moving traffic or reversing up hill you could probably burn out a clutch more quickly.

Recommendations to learn more:

• Join SportsMaserati forum
• Speak to Richard Grace (probably the most widely respected independent Maserati (sales only) dealer)
• Talk to Sports Italia, Maserati specialist in Hampshire run by one of the founders of the SportsMaserati forum

[vanman1936]

Great cars….£2k per year plus consumables should do it (which ain’t cheap).

Check the engine is post the one that had problematic solenoids (at least I think it was that item)….post 2011 are good I think. You can Google the number onwards which is safe.

Get a pre inspection to check for all items listed above as they do wear through suspension as if a consumable.

Brakes expensive.

Mechanically strong though and sounds like gods own chariot.

Loved mine.

[Cheburator mk2]

I am 3 months into the ownership of a 2013 Sport F1...

If you are going to do your own servicing, costs can be kept well down. Ultimately under the gorgeous skin, it's a very basic late 1990s early 2000s design, which for the most part is very analogue. There are hardly any gotchas and with perseverance almost anything can be fixed.

So far, I have found out that the biggest hindrance to running these cars for a reasonable cost is the lack of knowledge. I also run several old Porsches and ///M cars and the amount of info available online is staggering. To give you an idea, you will not be able to find online a workshop manual which covers a clutch change on a GTS. Ok, you can use the Quattroporte one as the car underneath is 99% the same, but that's still a far cry from BMW's TIS or the Porsche WSM for my GT3...

In addition, I can tell you that even quite a few of the so called specialists don't really understand how the F1 system works. It's a brilliant piece of kit, but it has its idiosyncrasies. Clutch life of 40k is about par for the course. Yes, it's not great, but that's the price you would pay for smooth gearchanges and a very light single mass flywheel, leading to a bonkers rev happy engine. Just as a point of reference, the clutch in my E61 M5 - which was very similar to the Maserati one lasted bang on 50k miles.

You will not be able to get dealer software - last time I looked, SD3 were going for North of £15k used if you were extremely lucky. Galileo or Leonardo which are almost as good as the dealer software are £13k. From the alternatives, the best by a mile is Launch X431 Pro Mini. Do not, I repeat do not attempt to mess with ECUs with other cheap Chinese diagnostic software. Bricking up ECUs is very easily done, while re-flashing them is a right pain in the ass. Ask me how I know...

Brakes - just buy Brembo fronts from eBay and rears from Eurospares. Bushes - they are cheap to get, but expensive to pay a garage to fit.

Read up on the "correct" alignment for the car - the factory front toe-out is stupid. Using the forum settings will save you a lot on front tyres.

Overall, I am still in love, despite the car not being the fastest or most reliable in my garage. But the feel good factor I get from every time I turn the ignition key to wake the beast is totally worth it.

P.S. What other car combines such looks, sound, performance, utility and feel good factor for the £25k it costs to by a great pre-Sport F1?

Edited by Cheburator mk2 on Friday 8th September 16:19

[AndrewCrown]

Some great detail on here…

I’ve had a 4.2 since 2014, ZF gearbox

Mechanically it has been very sound.
Nothing has ever ‘dropped’ off.

Every so often it spits a £3k bill…suspension, sensors, brake refurb.
Biggest expense to date was broken air conditioning.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

Some amazing info on here lads, thank you so much.

The car I was looking at, I was unable to get a response from the dealer. I could have called, but the fact that they failed to respond to a couple of mails is enough to put me off that example.

So what I’m looking for now is a 2011 or newer GranTurismo S with MCShift. My plan is to maintain it myself (as much as is possible) and to keep it very long term.

Shame the dealer software is so difficult to get a hold of. I’ll keep digging in that area

[Cheburator mk2]

Funkstar De Luxe said:

Some amazing info on here lads, thank you so much.

The car I was looking at, I was unable to get a response from the dealer. I could have called, but the fact that they failed to respond to a couple of mails is enough to put me off that example.

So what I’m looking for now is a 2011 or newer GranTurismo S with MCShift. My plan is to maintain it myself (as much as is possible) and to keep it very long term.

Shame the dealer software is so difficult to get a hold of. I’ll keep digging in that area

For diagnostic software - Launch X431 Pro Mini does everything that SD3 does, provided it's a legit Launch product and not a cheap knock-off, and also is updated regularly via the Launch software hub. Expect to pay around £550-ish for the kit.

I am getting the services done on mine at independents to maintain the stamps in the book, but the big jobs like brakes/clutch would be done by myself. Another thing - had the car aligned for £90 by my local race specialist. He is good enough to align a few GT3s and race M3s, thus paying over the odds for things like that is pointless.

Happy to share the somewhat messy workshop manual for a 2014 MC Auto - misses the clutch change part obviously, but it has lots of other useful stuff such as suspension bushes, shocks, interior, AC etc, so still very useful. Also have a copy of the Quattroporte one, which does have the clutch change instructions in it.

Last but not least - there is some other info online, but you have to do your research and sometimes dig deep in unlikely places such as Ferrari Chat, since we share quite a few bits/general designs with a few of the prancing donkeys of the period, and the US enthusiasts aren't scared of DIY/getting their hands dirty.

[corradokid]

I use an Autel ap200, available from Amazon. No match for a factory diag machine but will scan all modules, clears codes and provides live data, and I believe will reset service light.

[corradokid]

Just to also note, I’ve just purchased mine which is a 2009 GTS. Over the past 5 years/10 thousand miles the previous owner spent circa 14 thousand in maintenance. That didn’t include the major one which is a clutch, and I’m now budgeting for. So the big bills are real. It was also purchased by him from the renowned specialist you will hear about so not exactly a dog to start with.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

corradokid said:

Just to also note, I’ve just purchased mine which is a 2009 GTS. Over the past 5 years/10 thousand miles the previous owner spent circa 14 thousand in maintenance. That didn’t include the major one which is a clutch, and I’m now budgeting for. So the big bills are real. It was also purchased by him from the renowned specialist you will hear about so not exactly a dog to start with.

I’ve got to say, it does sound like it was at least a bit of a dog 😂

[m4tti]

Funkstar De Luxe said:

I’ve got to say, it does sound like it was at least a bit of a dog ??

Why would you think it’s a dog? It simply cost money to run and service at an independent. Sounds like it’s had a lot of work done, which is good.

You’re not going to Euro car parts and doing this cheap.. even the compatible oem parts will be expensive. Look on euro spares.

A lot of these parts are shared with the Ferrari 360/430. I’ve tried to reference the Maserati part instead of Ferrari and a lot of the time it’s no cheaper…

[Funkstar De Luxe]

m4tti said:

Why would you think it’s a dog? It simply cost money to run and service at an independent. Sounds like it’s had a lot of work done, which is good.

You’re not going to Euro car parts and doing this cheap.. even the compatible oem parts will be expensive. Look on euro spares.

A lot of these parts are shared with the Ferrari 360/430. I’ve tried to reference the Maserati part instead of Ferrari and a lot of the time it’s no cheaper…

Sounds like it spent more time in the shop than the road. 14k over 5 years (not even including the major clutch service) says that the owner was obviously having problems with it all the time. I don’t care too much about the cost, I care that it’s not a car that’s always needing something. Sharing Ferrari parts is not an excuse, there’s nothing magical about putting something on a Ferrari.

[m4tti]

Funkstar De Luxe said:

Sounds like it spent more time in the shop than the road. 14k over 5 years (not even including the major clutch service) says that the owner was obviously having problems with it all the time. I don’t care too much about the cost, I care that it’s not a car that’s always needing something. Sharing Ferrari parts is not an excuse, there’s nothing magical about putting something on a Ferrari.

Roughly 3k a year… which could be skewed on certain years, with a couple of big bills, sounds quite feasible.

You need to be aware these cars aren’t like a Mercedes.. it could be needing something quite regularly.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

m4tti said:

Roughly 3k a year… which could be skewed on certain years, with a couple of big bills, sounds quite feasible.

You need to be aware these cars aren’t like a Mercedes.. it could be needing something quite regularly.

Expensive maintenance is fine. “Needing something quite regularly” is not. My brain can’t and won’t comprehend a car being unable to run 12 months without it “needing something” doing.

My plan is essentially to buy one and to run it daily, and until it’s worthless or dead. If a GT really can’t manage a year without needing repair it’s most definitely not for me. I don’t want a garage queen, I wanted something I can use and pound the miles on. Not something I worry won’t start every morning

[Funkstar De Luxe]

I should point out that an average £3k per year” without it including the big clutch service is what tells me something is wrong.

I bet that car has cost £1 per mile in maintenance alone. And how long is it out of the owners hands during that time too? If that’s a realistic state of affairs the “GranTurismo” is really the wrong name for it. “Regina del Garage” doesn’t quite have the same ring.