Potential Owner with a few questions 4.2 GT

[Maser GT]

Hi

I am thinking of trading my current Porsche 996 C4S up for a Gran Turismo. The Porsche has been great over the last 5 years with out any major engine problems. I guess I spend about £1200 per year on maintenance (not including tyres). First question what will the maintenance be like on GT doing 10-12k a year as a daily driver.

Second question- what real world MPG does it give? I currently get 21mpg mixture of town and motorway - this is less important but useful to know.

Finally I have never owned an auto but I am getting increasingly fed up of the crawl out of London in the morning. I have heard lots of good things about the ZF transmission. How controllable is it. Will it hold onto a gear until the redline? Does it rev match on down changes?

I have read all about the suspension options and spec options but what particular options are most worth having - is there a sports exhaust option?

I will probably be in the market for one towards the end of the summer, but I like to do my research up front!

thanks everyone


Neil

 

[kmeand]

Neil, I bought my first Maserati 6 months ago and use it as a daily driver - so cannot tell you about maintenance costs yet. I do a morning commute of about 8 miles, leaving it in auto and it drives not far off any other luxury auto I have owned - it is very manageable. However if I want to "drive" it a bit more I knock it in to manual and have some fun. Pressing the Sport button on the new (MY13) Granturismo Sport makes the gearbox blip the throttle on downshift to match the gears - I believe the older model only used to do that in the MC shift. The GT Sport (as opposed to the old GT S) also opens the valves in sport manual permanently - whereas I heard that the GT S only opens them at 3000 rpm.

I get 16.6 mpg - less than I thought I would but I can get it to 20mpg if I am driving to Gleneagles (70mph cruising). If I am horsing around I can get it to 14.4mpg and I tried really hard one day and reached 12 but that was inappropriate driving on all fronts. I would not expect you to see 20 in commuting is what I am saying.

I have owned a few 911's (pretty much every Porsche owned over the years) and was not a fan of their tiptronic - I always had manual. I have to say though (and I know some people on here are MC Shift through and through) - but the new version of the ZF with the sport button fully engaging every aspect of sport mode has changed my mind - it is my favourite daily driver by a mile.

I do not believe there is a sport exhaust option - the old GT S Auto had an option in terms of the sport pack but others will need to comment - the 2013 GT Sport has all the sport exhaust you will need.

In terms of options I am glad I ordered the new style anthracite wheels over the Neptunes - and I put a fair bit of carbon inside, including the wheel (something Porsche did very well). contrast stitching on the seats makes them stand out and a colour on the callipers

One option you need to get is comfort seats (fully electric) - although the ipod interface seems a waste of time to me - it is cumbersome and not that practical or effective an integration.

kmeand

 

[Maser GT]

Hi Kmeand

I should have said given the budget I have set myself I will be looking at a 2008 Gt auto. I have spoken to a couple of dealers regarding the auto box in the GT of this vintage and had different replies regarding it's abililty to hold on to gears and to rev match.

Thanks for the rest of the info though.


Neil

 

[Andyk]

Hi Neil and a big warm welcome to the forum......

 

[bigbob]

Welcome. In specific answer to your question, the ZF in the 4.2 cannot be driven in full manual mode whereas in the 4.7 it can be; ie put it in manual mode in, say, fourth, at 30mph - on the 4.7 it will take you all the way to max revs in fourth whereas on the 4.2 it will kick down to second and go up through second and third to the redline. Same with the QP FWIW.