Maserati warranty expiring - my experience

[slay]

Good afternoon all. I have not had time to post many, have been too busy rearranging and cancelling my holidays and travel plans lately...

Well, one thing that I did take time to do was to prepare for the end of my Maserati warranty for my Stradale, and it was definitely time well spent, and just want to share with you all my experience and a special thanks to Matt to get the Maserati dealer to acknowledge the issues.

So long story short, I have a Stradale with just 9000 miles on the clock, it was an impulsive purchase, as I had bought Stuart's Stradale and very happy with it, but just could not pass the exposed carbon (on a black car), the carbon fibre interior and exterior, the yellow calliper, the low mileage, 3 year younger and another 2 years of Maserati warranty... so man math kicked in and I convinced myself that it was a great deal .....then Covid-19 happened, so I ended up with ownership of 2 black Stradales for a good 4 months.

Anyway, with warranty expiring mid September, I did what most of you would have done, took the car to Matt to identify any issues that could be sorted "for free" under Maserati warranty.

So, Matt and Ash were able to find 2 issues within 10 minutes of having the car up on the car lift - some minor oil leaks and AC compressor, I then took the car into the Maserati dealer near me to ask them to sort out these issues under warranty thinking that I have at least made some good use of the Maserati warranty.

The dealer's service manager came back a few days later claiming that they could not find any oil leak, and that this oily looking substance was from "condensation" into the exhaust system ... etc, advice from the dealer's "Master" mechanic. Well, I took the car back, sent them the inspection report from Matt... they wanted photographic evidence of the leaks found, very frustrating and very annoying to say the least.

Thanks to Matt, he spoke to the service manager about what he found, and the service manager called me back to acknowledge that they might have missed it and asked me to bring the car back to the dealership.

So moral of the story is that ... a pre warranty expiring inspection is definitely worth it. From my perspective, I will only take my car to a Maserati dealer for any warranty repair work and nothing else, I found it unbelievable how they could have "missed it" or whatever the deal is between the dealership and Maserati that this kind of issue would only surface once my warranty has expired.

 

[MaserMike]

Thanks for the useful insights and experience, glad to hear you managed to get some resolution forward. Unfortunately I recently had some pains trying to get some warranty work done by the main dealer based in Nottingham for my Levante - the rear camera had moisture build up inside the lense, so on a humid day or morning there would be a large blob of water in the middle on the camera lense inside and subsequently the reverse screen picture would be either ‘fog’ or large water droplet…. Eventually the who picture quality was permanently foggy… Multiple times back to the dealer who initially said it was perfectly fine and no fault found, which was BS. Also supposedly compared it to another Levante saying it was identical the picture. After several calls, emails with photos including escalation to Maserati in Italy - they finally conceded the camera was faulty and would replace under warranty. Also when I first bought the car, the xenon headlights were very dim at night - again they claimed there is nothing wrong and compared it again to another 2016 Levante. I told them the xenon bulbs would need replacing… gave up in the end arguing and bought some new xenon bulbs plus fitted myself one afternoon. Quite disappointing when you have to fight for faults which should be fixed under warranty, doesn’t apply to just Maserati but quite a few manufacturers….

 

[Scaf]

I wonder why the dealers push back when they simply get paid by the factory, I have always found my Jaguar dealer jumps at the chance to bill for warranty work.

 

[MaserMike]

I wonder why the dealers push back when they simply get paid by the factory, I have always found my Jaguar dealer jumps at the chance to bill for warranty work.

I agree, found it odd as they won’t be out of pocket. Also had a few nightmares with our local Audi MD to sort out warranty items on my wife’s car and my previous one too…

 

[Chrisb2015]

As iI understand it it’s because all warranty work needs to be approved by HQ in Italy. I have my car in for a parking sensor (again) and it takes days to get the ok to replace. Lots of testing and diagnostics before they agree. All very frustrating. Interestingly my other half asked me what would happen once the car was out of warranty…..rather than spin a good story I said they will pull my pants down and charge a fortune. I didn’t help my case for owing a couple of Massers.

 

[conaero]

As Chris points out the issue lays more with Maserati in Modena than the dealer. Upon speaking with Slay’s dealer we had a bit of a general ‘chat’ about warranties and we both agreed when under Ferrari it was not questioned and excellent cover. Nowadays, Maserati seem to wriggle like other manufacturers. Ferrari have it right and customer retention is high due to this.

Do the maths Maserati!

 

[Simon1963]

As Chris points out the issue lays more with Maserati in Modena than the dealer. Upon speaking with Slay’s dealer we had a bit of a general ‘chat’ about warranties and we both agreed when under Ferrari it was not questioned and excellent cover. Nowadays, Maserati seem to wriggle like other manufacturers. Ferrari have it right and customer retention is high due to this.

Do the maths Maserati!

I wonder if the rate Maserati pay dealers for warranty work is less then their normal rate so that theirs no profit in it. I remember years ago chatting to a body shop manager who worked for an insurance company. He said that he only got £19 per hour from the insurance company contract against his normal £40 per hour. Hence why I was chatting to him as the car was rushed out of the door not finished properly.

 

[c4sman]

Thanks for the tips, definitely will do an end of warranty check.

 

[slay]

Thanks for the useful insights and experience, glad to hear you managed to get some resolution forward. Unfortunately I recently had some pains trying to get some warranty work done by the main dealer based in Nottingham for my Levante - the rear camera had moisture build up inside the lense, so on a humid day or morning there would be a large blob of water in the middle on the camera lense inside and subsequently the reverse screen picture would be either ‘fog’ or large water droplet…. Eventually the who picture quality was permanently foggy… Multiple times back to the dealer who initially said it was perfectly fine and no fault found, which was BS. Also supposedly compared it to another Levante saying it was identical the picture. After several calls, emails with photos including escalation to Maserati in Italy - they finally conceded the camera was faulty and would replace under warranty. Also when I first bought the car, the xenon headlights were very dim at night - again they claimed there is nothing wrong and compared it again to another 2016 Levante. I told them the xenon bulbs would need replacing… gave up in the end arguing and bought some new xenon bulbs plus fitted myself one afternoon. Quite disappointing when you have to fight for faults which should be fixed under warranty, doesn’t apply to just Maserati but quite a few manufacturers….

Yes, this kind of behaviour certainly does not help the brand. If a dealer is doing this with things that we could see, imagine what they would do with issues that we cannot see !

I am sure that they would have asked you to replace the camera, change the xenon bulbs, haha and probably asked you to change the headlight assembly rather than just light bulbs.

I would like to know what is this deal between dealers and Maserati, would have thought that dealers would want to find faults during warranty as well, as these would have been covered by Maserati.

 

[slay]

As iI understand it it’s because all warranty work needs to be approved by HQ in Italy. I have my car in for a parking sensor (again) and it takes days to get the ok to replace. Lots of testing and diagnostics before they agree. All very frustrating. Interestingly my other half asked me what would happen once the car was out of warranty…..rather than spin a good story I said they will pull my pants down and charge a fortune. I didn’t help my case for owing a couple of Massers.

Well, having experienced the competency of their "master" technician, I would not bother using a dealer with any non warranty work, why bother being ripped off and with substandard results? I no longer value this "main dealer service history" on a Maserati ...

 

[slay]

As Matt said, Maserati was behaving more like a super premium brand under Ferrari, and now they are behaving like a stingy brand, simply not in line with their brand proposition, not good news for the Maserati enthusiast like us.