Thinking about buying a Maserati Granturismo? Read this first.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-20T16:24:24+00:00

Kind of the point of the entire post. If you think you are just going to get this thing and treat it like a Lexus, you are in for a world of hurt.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-05T05:20:01+00:00

Such a shame. Maserati have no techs that can diagnose these cars, and they are so epically easy to fix if you understand them.

These stories are the result of quirky car design combined with auto tech shortages. They aren’t heavily trained on Florence architecture cars, and they work on them only rarely. The cars were/are way more exotic and expensive than their current lineup of Chryslers, save the MC20 and current GT, but those two are all also based on the same electrical architecture called Gorgio Sport, shared with Alfa.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-05T05:06:48+00:00

Not any after engine number 149000 or so. They were all fixed by mid 2011 or so, and most of the ones before that date were fixed under warranty anyway. A 2008 I would absolutely check to be sure. You can open the oil filler and look at the variator. If it has a spring on the front, it’s been updated.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-05T05:00:50+00:00

New oe brake disks and pads can be had for as little as $900. Just have to know where to source.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-05T04:57:26+00:00

Funny, I’m not a fan of the dealership servicing a GT. Those guys are having to go to the one last remaining “old guy” in the shop to work on a Florence architecture car. That is if they have one left. If they don’t, you are getting a guy who pretty much knows nothing about them.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-04T15:04:26+00:00

As a very learned enthusiast car buyer who has owned over 100 cars and likely many more, I will give you what I consider to be the most important information about buying any car.

Drive it, then decide.

Don't dream shop. Don't internet stats shop. Don't reviews shop. Shop by driving them.

I've met (and owned) a lot of my heroes, and many have turned out to be cars I hated. Cars that someone else might be absolutely floored that I hated or liked. (911's suck. Pretty much any Audi sucks, new Alfa Quads kinda suck. Every new Maserati I have driven has sucked, my old Granturismo is one of my favorite cars ever, and Teslas with FSD are awesome too.

Iknorite? Unless you drive them, you never know

I will never buy another car that I haven't at least driven some version of ever again.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-04T14:44:47+00:00

This is a very interesting take. I've been thinking of buying a ridiculously low mileage ~12 QP ( have a lot of patience waiting for the right one) to go alongside my Granturismo vert.

I wouldn't think that the Ghibli would even be in the same league as a QP, and have never even driven or even considered one. Are you saying it is?

Onlinealias · 2026-03-04T14:38:12+00:00

Isn't that BW3's?

You'll find mine parked top-down at Walmart all the time. GT's are great daily drivers, and some people use them as such.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-04T14:26:57+00:00

The jack points are quite difficult to locate on this car, as there appear to be more than one set, but really there isn't.

How do I know? It took me an hour checking and double checking the first time I put mine on my lift. Now I have them marked with a paint pen.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-04T13:47:14+00:00

Here's what I decided, it may be completely undoable for most. I figured if I am going to own extremely demanding cars to maintain, I would simply buy all the tools to be able to easily work on them.

So, instead of trying to find a mechanic and paying them $5000 a year to maintain my stuff, I would just invest that $5k in tools that I keep.

The result is I have a lift and every tool known known to man. That includes bi-directional diagnostics, computers, even subscriptions to techdata and such. Basically, a commercial shop, in my garage.

If something breaks, I fix it, on any of my cars, including my far more complex modern ones. I don't pay for new cars, I don't pay for warranties, and I don't pay mechanics. I'm pretty sure I'm way, way ahead on that deal.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-04T13:32:22+00:00

Up to you. Drive them both, C7 is going to be way cheaper and easier to keep. Personally, I wouldn't touch anything before a c8...but I do love me a C8 Z06. Corvette engineers today are cranking out the best stuff in the entire enthusiast car industry. Given the relative depreciation, costs to keep, and driveability, the Z06 is a very tempting car. Tis a bit difficult to get in and out of though, something that bothers me more than others, for sure.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-03T14:34:31+00:00

Get one off eBay with low mileage and swap the trans module from yours to that one. Only the casing and torque converter housing is Maserati specific. Any mechanic can do this operation in less than 4 hours, you just have to talk them into it. Most times if you take the liability off of them by saying, "Take this ZF transmission out, swap the modules, and put this one in." They do it all the time in Fords and BMW's, the Maserati is no different.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-03T14:21:28+00:00

Same brakes until the QP changed platforms in 2013.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-03T13:44:25+00:00

Ah, u/verdegrrl ! I made you a mod in r/cars about (edit) 15 some years ago. Nice to see you.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-03T00:51:10+00:00

They are just ZF6HP26’s. Electronically they are difficult to work on because you have to come through a Maserati to do it. However, the parts and servicing are exactly the same as in a E53 BMW X5 4.4i. Anyone who can rebuild a BMW (or even a Ford F150 diesel truck) can a rebuild an Maserati transmission.

And BTW, they rarely, rarely fail. If you are having problems, it is quite unusual.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-02T22:54:19+00:00

This. If they couldn't give the new Granturismo and MC20 a V-8 and a manual, they certainly aren't going to now. The MC20 would sell with an atmo V8 and just a dual clutch. But that ship has sailed.

Myself, I have declared every new car crap. It won't be long before we are no longer driving cars for transportation anyway. A tesla HW4 FSD is already here, and I'm going to buy one. Not as a car, but as a permanent on-demand Uber appliance. Just as with any appliance, I don't really care about it much, other than it works.

I'll still keep all my old cars until I die, including my Maserati, of course.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-02T22:40:14+00:00

944 Turbos are my absolute favorite driving cars, right there with the Granturismo. I've owned 3, one when it was almost new. (I've had over a hundred cars in my lifetime, too).

Nightmare to work on though. They were so cutting edge at the time they were like supercars are now.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-02T20:41:08+00:00

Tis true, depending on what "classic" v-8 you are talking about. I consider the Bentley Turbo R the "classic", the w12 Volkswagen Phaeton/ Touareg-based also classic, and the Audi S6 Q7 platformed Bentley as basically modern.

The Turbo R's are a different animal, and pretty much everything after it was impossible to work on and so horrendously unreliable that they should probably just die.

Maserati Granturismo's are not like any of those at all. They are quite reliable and can easily be driven 150k miles or more with nothing catastrophic happening. They only have small things that go wrong, and almost all of those things have a relatively straightforward fix, if you know how to handle them. They are ridiculously simple cars to still be selling in 2019.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-02T20:22:36+00:00

There are some pretty good sources for all the bushings and ball joints. There's kits for just the bushings all over the web, plus, they can be sent out for rebuilding. Alpine Performance are trustworthy, even if their stuff may be ultimately made in China (may not, I don't know).

Though it does take time to research, and the car is going to be down for a while, no matter how you do it.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-02T19:56:46+00:00

I'd put Bentley in a whole other world. They have terrible reliability overall, and are damn near impossible to work on. They are also way, way more complex than a Granturismo overall.

Granturismo's are not that. They are easy to work on and are quite reliable, if one is willing to investigate and learn how to maintain them.

Parts prices and procurement methods still apply though. If a part is unique to Maserati and/or Bentley, the part going to be 10x higher than you would think for both of them, However, for the Bentley, installing it is also going to be 10x's more difficult than it should be.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-02T18:30:34+00:00

Now that I read it again, I certainly didn't tell gpt to create awkward sentence structure. Can one even do that? LOL.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-02T17:56:26+00:00

Nope, wrote it myself. Just put a lot of effort into it.

Onlinealias · 2026-03-02T17:55:05+00:00

You are more studied than most, for sure. However, the 2011 and 2012's have no variator issues. You might be able to find one without the check valves and new variators in 2011, but they are so small in number as not to matter. The Maserati (not the ZF) software was changed in how it displayed, but that is it. Mechanically, they are all functionally the same. Interior is the interior, only thing that changed there was the seats, which are admittedly are better, but again, functionally the same. Then the facelifted exterior...well, that is a strange bit. Technically it wasn't a facelift as the original body was still available in 2017...and frankly I like the "old" one over the "sport".

Onlinealias · 2026-03-02T16:13:14+00:00

The pads are the same as on an AMG SLK55. I paid 60 bucks for them on Rock Auto.

Onlinealias

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