No service history - what is the loss of value?

[EXCF350]

Nothing to do with Maserati but I value your opinions.
I went to see a Morgan Aeromax which was for sale at a price that reflected its low milage and an assumed full service history. These cars have a BMW v8 engine as in the old M3.
However, as I was looking at the finer detail of the car, my wife was looking at all the documentation and noticed that it had gone 3 years without a service and had done approx 2000 miles each year in that time according to the MOT details. It should be serviced every year. The car is spotless apart from this and the problem is there are so few that they are hard to value.
There are currently 2 on Autotrader for £120K so assuming similar but without the service history, what do you think it's worth? Or should I walk because the service history is too important?
My thoughts are a 10-20% loss of value and at worst a bit of internal engine wear or blocked oil line which should be cleared with a good engine flush. At worst it's a bog standard BMW engine with parts plentiful.

 

[Contigo]

Depends how anal you are about cars. Personally if the car was good and had a small missing gap in service and only a few k miles covered in that time I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

Not everyone lives in an ideal world where they can service a car every 2k miles or every year as we know how quickly years fly by!

 

[Classico]

Was in a similar situation here when buying my Maser for similar dollars.

The service history was very important to me. I overlooked a few cars based on that.

If you have deep enough pockets to wear any potential additional costs/maintenance to bring it up speed, not an issue I guess. That's the crucial factor IMO.

Depending if you want to move it on quickly, lack of service history won't help your own resale. Again, may not be an issue for you personally.

 

[EXCF350]

Depending if you want to move it on quickly, lack of service history won't help your own resale. Again, may not be an issue for you personally.

This is my real concern. The car is relatively simple with a standard BMW engine so any problems should be easily fixed. However, how much value has been lost by this lack of service history? As you say, when I come to resell it, it will sell for a lower price that reflects this. Does anyone have an idea of what sort of percentage drop in value this would be? I guess buying a classic Maserati there are two values depending on whether there is a full service history or not.

 

[dickygrace]

Buy the black one with the perfect history and have it wrapped in your chosen colour

 

[whereskeith]

my car had 15k kms when I bought it an month ago, its a 2006 yom.. it had zero service history, yet over 10k worth of maintenance work in the last 4 years which was documented at Maserati.
I spent months renegotiating price and got 10% off, which doesn't sound much (I had already negotiated ******* the first price)but the car had just had a full service and inspection/ check over at Maserati and 4 new pzeros.
Condition wise it was way above what I had seen on other cars and it seemed to me it had been looked after and genuine.
I know there will be issues (Maserati huh), but I will sort and know that it has been done properly.
the cost of travelling around here to view other cars (by the time u do a few)would actually pay for lots of maintenance..(Madrid is 5 hours and Barcelona 10hours)
that's why I made the choice, I know it will affect future value and a good chunk of people will walk away...But I don't intend selling for a long time and my enjoyment will compensate in my eyes.

 

[beau]

i think it will be fine, the low miles its done between the servicing it will be fine, the miles the oil has done matter alot more than age

 

[EXCF350]

Buy the black one with the perfect history and have it wrapped in your chosen colour

Thought you might say something like that!

 

[hodroyd]

Whereskeith,
You can sometimes get history from Maserati Dealers, if you know where the car has been located, try the local dealer and ask them for the service history. You might have to hunt around a bit, but for a little time you could get most of the history. The original selling dealer will have some..!!

 

[whereskeith]

Hi Hodroyd.
Thx for the advice.
The car came from Italy at 6 months old with low miles, It also still has the original key holder that states the Garage (in Modena I think)
It was imported from Italy to Spain where it remained with the guy I purchased from.
I have all the Spanish MOT's etc.
I did call Maserati and they checked their database and could only confirm/ see the maintenance that I know about.. It had never had an official service. The Local Maserati official dealer confirmed all the work they had carried out in the last 5 years.. But no services.
I looked at quite a few cars here in Southern Spain and none had any history or records and u could see bad maintenance...This had the most history by far and was the better condition by far, it drove like new.
Its very different down here...
I have a question for you.
I notice you have an 07 GS with full larini, Did u change the exhaust manifolds or are they still US spec?... Its one of my future mods, I hate the setup of the US exhaust manifold.
If so was it a big job to change etc
I am also thinking about DBW , and maybe an ecu upgrade , whats your feedback?

 

[mjheathcote]

Regarding the Morgan, it's done 6k miles between services. The BMW engine if like all the other engines calls up an oil service on average every 18k miles.
I wouldn't worry one bit personally the only thing that really deteriorates with time would be the brake fluid. So that would be a priority. Even coolant these days has a min life of 5 years.
You are very lucky if you buy any vehicle that does such low mileage a year to be to the book.
I can recall having my Elise serviced every 2 years instead of annually and it might in a bad period having done less than 1k in that period!