Ghibli 2.8 GT advice

Hello all,
newbie here, but sadly I don't have a Maserati yet. However on Monday I'll be going to see a Ghibli GT, so hopefully I won't be Maseratiless for much longer

Quick introduction, I'm Chris, used to live in England but I'm now based in Switzerland. I've never owned a Maserati before, actually only ever owned one Italian car, an Alfa 164 3.0 V6, so this will be a whole new world for me!

And to the bit that interests people on here, the car I'll be going to see is a 1996 Ghibli 2.8 GT with the 6 speed manual.
It is a one owner car, with 78,000km (around 50,000 miles), and according to the dealer has been well looked after throughout its life. He doesn't have any pictures, but the car is green on green. Outside is dark green which should suit it quite well, but I'm struggling to figure out what a green interior looks like. Apparently it is light green, so if anyone has examples I'd be curious to see

Also just so that I'm a bit prepared, is there anything specific to look out for on these?
From what I gather, servicing is a bit unusual in the sense that each service has different requirements. The one that worries me the most is the cam chain since it is apparently very labour intensive, is 80,000km when it is due?
Finally concerning rust, what are the known areas on these cars?

Hi Christopher...thanks for joining and posting.......the 4 guys below are owners of same/standard Ghibli....maybe pm them in case they miss you thread.

Ghibli: 2
Arfa, Simon M

Ghibli GT: 2
Malc, Ian Roberts

P

Hi Christopher and a big warm welcome to the forum..As Frank has mentioned above they are two of the gentlemen that know all things Ghibli and I'm sure they will be along soon..

Hi Chris. Welcome to the forum. We have a simple motto here at Sportsmaserati " Ask and you shall receive"

Firstly pictures of a green interior below



Unfortunately the rust protection on these cars wasn't the best so even the best cars can suffer from the rust bug at some time. Main areas to check are the floor pan, sills, bonnet leading edge, front scuttle, bottom of the A posts and front wings. There is already a thread of Adams restoration of a 94 Ghibli Seria 1a which has some useful photos. I post the link in another post.

Here is the link http://www.sportsmaserati.com/showthread.php/11867-Ghibli-2-restoration.

Whilst Adams car is probably worse than most it does give an idea of what to look for and how bad it can get. My own car whilst looking good had pretty bad rust at the base of the A pillars which was only found on removing the dashboard to replace the heater fan and is now starting to deteriorate in other places. It will be undergoing a full body restoration this winter.

With regards to the cam chain change I believe it is due at 48,000 miles which would equate to around 77,000 km. This is a full engine out but other than that the engines are extremely reliable capable of covering high mileages. I am aware of one car that has covered over 170,000.

The car in those pics has non-standard front seats, the colour is the same as the factory pelle verde however. Not that it makes much difference but here is a pic of a car with a standard green interior:

View attachment 20677


Not much to add to the above comments, check the condition of the bodywork thoroughly in all the places mentioned, plus it is also an idea to check the area under the front spoiler at the base of the windscreen, the area around the bonnet hinges at the back of the engine bay, front and rear screen surrounds and also peel back the door seals where they run along the roof as rust can start here too. I would also thoroughly check the boot for water leaks, many Ghiblis has been sideways into lamp posts etc and a poor repair can lead to water leaking into the boot.

The cam chain service is a big one but most specialists can now change them with the engine in situ and is often half the price of a main dealer. Don't worry too much about it though, the chains often don't need changing, as long as they are checked at the correct intervals they are often good for more miles than the servicing schedule suggests, however, if you hear any rattling noises from the rear of the engine bay it is likely they need changing. You also need to make sure the cam belt has been changed (every 24000 miles) and valve clearances checked and adjusted accordingly every 12000 miles. I would recommend listening for blowing on the exhaust manifolds, usually only apparent when starting from cold, they tend to crack if the car hasn't been allowed to cool down slowly after a run. The cracks will often close up as the engine heats up so make sure you listen to the engine from a cold start. Any problems here will mean an engine out repair and usually while the engine is out there are lots of other jobs that may as well be done at the same time, often leading to a big bill.

I would also check the operation of the electronic suspension (if fitted), try each setting and see if you can notice whether the car gets harder or softer, make sure you have green lights rather than red. The car should default to position 2 when starting. Any problems here can be very expensive to fix, electronic shock absorbers are around £500GBP each!

Also check that the a/c panel works properly as they are expensive to replace and as Arfa will tell you, make sure the blower works ok as replacement is a big and expensive job!

Don't let all that put you off, if you buy a car with good bodywork and a decent service history they are generally very reliable and good for high mileages and are excellent cars, particularly the very late GTs which have much better build quality than earlier cars.

Thanks for the welcome and all the pointers!
The green in your picture looks very smart. When I asked about this car the dealer called it "hellgrün" which translates as lime green, so I'm not sure if it's the same.

It does have electronic suspensions so I'll make sure to check that.

Let us know how things progress...always good to see the older models on the forum


P

Hi Christopher & welcome.
Good luck with the purchase, from experience you have come to the right place for help & advice. There are some good guys on here.

Been to see the car today, some good points, some not so good.

For starters, bodywork. Goon news is, there's no rust. The arches are all completely free of the stuff, couldn't see any an the base of the A pillars on under the spoiler, nor any other obvious spots. However there were a few light scratches, around the front wheel arch (touched up), and strangely all along the trailing edge of the drivers door (as if it kept being open onto something). The two mirrors were also scratched, and all 4 alloys were kerbed. All those can be touched up, but to me it strikes as someone not taking all that much care of it.

Electrically, everything seemed to be working as it should, no concerns on that side.

Mechanically, although it has a full history and was last serviced 700km ago, it has barely been driven in the last decade. The last service was in 2011. Previously in 2008 and before that in 2003. The '03 service is when the belts last got done (the car only covered 11,000km since then).

The car didn't show anything obviously wrong, just the big gaps in servicing concern me a bit. Probably a good service to refresh all the fluids and get the belts done is all it really needs, I'm not sure if these cars suffer when they sit around doing nothing.

And on the plus side, they don't hang about. Pulls really strong once its on boost, and gets to silly speeds very quickly. I've had more powerful cars before, but this seems more brutal in its power delivery than big V8's

You drove it? On 11 year old belts? You're a braver man than I am!

C

It's not his car so no need to be concerned if it went bang.

That's what I thought too! I'd drive a 20 year old cambelt if it was a test drive in someone elses car!

Was the interior lime green then?

Contigo said:

That's what I thought too! I'd drive a 20 year old cambelt if it was a test drive in someone elses car!

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Oh no! I'd be far too scared!

C

It has Chains lads the belts are AUX.

Pibbow said:

It has Chains lads the belts are AUX.

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Ahh. Different story then

C

Pibbow said:

It has Chains lads the belts are AUX.

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Actually the 24v engine has both cam chains and a cam belt. The cam belt drives the exhaust camshafts and chains drive the inlet camshafts (from the exhaust camshafts). Cam belt failure can be very messy as when the belt goes, drive to all camshafts is lost, valves meet pistons etc, big mess. I'm currently fixing that very problem on my 2.0 GT

View attachment 20786

Yes I did drive it on 11 year old belts, but I only checked the history after the drive. It may have been done since, but there's no evidence of it so I guess not.

Arfa said:

Was the interior lime green then?

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No it was the normal green, looked very nice too!

And concerning the cam chain/belt explanation, sounds like a very convoluted design!
Was the belt on your 2.0 overdue or it just gave up unexpectedly? Best of luck getting it back on the road!

I'm still in two minds over this. On one hand it has none of the dreaded rust, but on the other it needs at the minimum a big service.

I bought it with a broken cam belt so I got it very cheap. The car has 75000kms so I think it must have been the original from 1996, although its a huge job and the parts are proving to be quite expensive, the body and interior are perfect so in the end I'll have a nice low kms GT for a good price.

Although major services on Ghiblis can be very expensive they are not rocket science to work on, so if you can do anything yourself it really helps to keep the costs down. It sounds as though the car you're looking at goes well which is a good sign, neglected cars often have blunted performance, particularly if the valve clearances and timing are out. The service needn't necessarily be hugely expensive, a cam belt change should be around £400 gbp but you'll also need to factor in a water pump change and any other works that are found to be needed. If you can change the plugs/oil/filter and check the brakes yourself then it will obviously save you some cash. Obviously I can't comment on the car you are considering as I haven't seen it, but if the body is rust free then any mechanical issues are fixable although it might be an idea to have a compression check done on the engine as a full rebuild is very expensive. Hopefully you checked the turbos weren't smoking and spooled up ok? It sounds as though its a nice car but perhaps it might be an idea to get an expert to have a look at it for you just to be sure. If you look at www.maserati-alfieri.co.uk and scroll down to specialists you should find a number of them in Switzerland who may be able to help.

Good luck with the purchase, let us know how you get on....