TVR (mainly tuscans) and maseratis

helpimcrap · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:14

Please don't read anything into this as it's purely curiosity as i've heard certain things but don't know anyone who can confirm but you lot might...

Basically the TVR range and the Maserati range - how reliable are they?

I've heard TVRs are soso on reliability but they tend to be pricey when they go wrong whereas Maserati are a lot like Lancia in the 'don't touch with a bargepole unless you have stupidly deep pockets' type thing.

Howard · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:16

Not very.

Jez · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:17

I'd be interested to hear people's opinions on maserati's too..are you talking about the 4200GT's? They look staggeringly good for the money, but strangely i do not know of anyone with one to get an opinion on them.

shauncr91 · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:21

Not sure about Maserati but with a TVR it tends to depends how well you look after it and treat it etc. Also if you are really scared and have a little extra cash, TVR Power will rebuild the engine for £5k and include an unlimited mileage warranty for 5 years, which is a very nice piece of mind to have.

Someone made a thread here asking similar questions about Tuscans so worth a look.

Edit: Seems the warranty is 3yrs not 5. - http://www.tvrpower.co.uk/upgrades/engine-rebuild-3-year-unlimited-mileage-warranty/

helpimcrap · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:23

Jez said:
I'd be interested to hear people's opinions on maserati's too..are you talking about the 4200GT's? They look staggeringly good for the money, but strangely i do not know of anyone with one to get an opinion on them.

mainly yes, as i was just doing something out of curiosity and a lot turned up in view and i was curious.

Housey · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:26

Any TVR with a Speed 6 engine is likely to cost you proper money at some point in time, the engine was made from putty and at some point in life it will go pop and need a rebuild. There are people out there with Speed 6's with 3 or 4 rebuilds though this is rare as the independents such as Racing Green get it right, but one of their rebuilds is likely to set you back close to 10K! All TVR's are fragile and can suffer from spaceframe rusting and other such nightmares. Eyes open when you buy any TVR and you will need a war chest of around £5K

I don't know much about Maserati's other than they are very expensive to service and the early cars were prone to going expensively wrong.

Matmulder · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:27

Maserati's are massively expensive to run, obviously. They're £60k new, and they use Ferrari engines. Not sure there is much more to say.
Not entirely sure about reliability, but press reports seems to indicate that its pretty good, I get the impression that they don't go wrong very often, but when they do its not cheap.

TVR's...well, cheapish to buy, but reliability isn't the strong point. Later ones like the T350's aren't too bad, reliability wise, but running costs are high.

Jez · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:31

Matmulder said:
Maserati's are massively expensive to run, obviously. They're £60k new, and they use Ferrari engines. Not sure there is much more to say.

Yes there is, although unlikely around here it would be cool if anyone with personal experience with them could put some figures to it. Massively expensive means different things to different people.

Helpimcrap, its probably easiest to simply phone an agent and then some performance specialists wrt the maserati servicing. If reliability is generally signaled to be good you can guess running costs based on parts and servicing quotes.

helpimcrap · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:33

it's just something i'd heard and to see these cars bandied around at the same prices as a mondeo just struck me as cheap but then i was wondering what the 'real cost' was, thats all.

Hxc · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:35

A TVR with a Speed Six will eventually blow up unless it's been rebuilt by someone who really knows how to put it right, and will cost you about £5-10k to put right. Other than that there's lots of little electrical gremlins, and various small and sometimes expensive faults.

Jez · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:37

helpimcrap said:
it's just something i'd heard and to see these cars bandied around at the same prices as a mondeo just struck me as cheap but then i was wondering what the 'real cost' was, thats all.

I wouldnt begin to compare them to Mondeo's

The purchase price is fairly irrelevant and is only artificially low due to them being very specialist.

helpimcrap · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:38

Jez said:
I wouldnt begin to compare them to Mondeo's The purchase price is fairly irrelevant and is only artificially low due to them being very specialist.

nope, there were several of them and i put in a limit of £20000 on ebay as i was searching for a pic of a car.

Jez · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:41

You misundestand, i mean do not compare them in the same light as other cars in the same used price bracket.

If you buy one the purchase price has to be irrelevant, its going to be a maserati to run the day you drive it away. As such it needs to be treated as an expensive car even though now it isnt one. Best bet for running costs is to ring a main agent as i say and get some parts and servicing quotes. Off the top of my head, knowing Ferrari, i would say you'd be fairly safe if you stuck ballpark £500pm into a car buffer account assuming it wont be doing big mileage

helpimcrap · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:43

Jez said:
You misundestand, i mean do not compare them in the same light as other cars in the same used price bracket.

If you buy one the purchase price has to be irrelevant, its going to be a maserati to run the day you drive it away. As such it needs to be treated as an expensive car even though now it isnt one. Best bet for running costs is to ring a main agent as i say and get some parts and servicing quotes. Off the top of my head, knowing Ferrari, i would say you'd be fairly safe if you stuck ballpark £500pm into a car buffer account assuming it wont be doing big mileage

ah gotcha and thats kinda the point of this thread - they're cars me or you easily buy but could we afford to run them? lol

Jez · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:46

The way to answer that question is to ask yourself if you can make a car enough of a priority that you can spare that sort of sum on a consistent basis for it. Until you get some quotes its rather hard to put an arbitrary figure to it, i was just working from experience of Ferrari and my running of expensive to run cars.

Dup · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:49

Depends on the cars cost, but personally I'd want double the example cars purchase fee put aside for any troubles.

If I had 10k I'd love to pick up a nice Cerbera and there's a specialist in the town I work which is pretty well regarded from what I've seen and owners I've talked to. That would have to be the £10k I have after dong everything else I wanted to do mind you.

Lashout_UK · 17 Dec 2009 at 20:42

There was an excellent article from a Maserati dealer in a copy of PPC recently, I'll dig it out and post up the short and sweet of it...

UTTER_FILTH · 17 Dec 2009 at 21:33

TVR's reliability is a joke..

My dad owns a Tuscan S, in the time he's had it, it's needed 2 engine rebuilds, the exhausts have fallen off a few times, the rear windows have been sucked out a couple of times, he's had to replace a couple of alloys because they buckled after going over a pot hole, the list goes on.. I'm pretty sure he's easily spent £15k+ just on repairing it..
He knows its a money pit, but just refuses to get something else, because of how much "fun" it is.. Madness!!!

Lashout_UK · 17 Dec 2009 at 21:50

Have to say, my neighbour had a Griffith and that did actually spend more time in the workshop and on the back of a flatbed, than it did on the road - numerous electrical problems and starting issues. Kept shutting him out, too

The thing is, TVRs are effectively just kit cars (more so the earlier ones) - so if you have a bit of know-how and experience you can easily re-work, modify or uprate the things that actually cause problems, or repair them if they do break, and get some good use out of them.

Later ones seem to have very frail engines, as mentioned - and not cheap engines, either....

panthro · 18 Dec 2009 at 01:44

I did a lot of research into 3200GT's....and my conclusion was to buy a 4200GT instead

much much more reliable than the 3200's.
A good example is my friends father bought a 3200GT from new. Within 6 weeks the aircon broke and the cabin was partially flooded, ruined the carpet and electrics. He traded it back to Maranello and got a 456 instead.
I think that now for 10k if you find one thats been looked after and had a lot of work done to it already, it would be an excellent buy. Providing you had a small fund tucked away for potential bills that will follow.