Nospinzone

OK, I have to come clean to this forum. Last week I test drove a Maserati Quattroporte. The local Bentley/Rolls Royce/Lamborghini dealership took a 2012 with 5000 miles in trade. The MSRP was $138K and they were asking $100K (negotiable of course). It is a gorgeous looking, handling and sounding car.

But you know what, it lacks so many of the amenities I have become accustomed to that I couldn't do it. Firstly, the car has an actual key. Can you believe it?! You have to actually take a metal key out of your pocket to start the car. And then if you don't completely close the door, you have to open it again and close it with effort.

So OK, I'm just a lazy ***, but then when I had to back the car out of its parking space, the nav screen didn't show the view behind me (no rear view camera). You mean I have to turn around and actually look behind me? All right I'll deal with that, but can't the mirrors at least angle down so I can see the curb? And you can touch the nav screen all you want, but it doesn't do anything.

The car has a Bose system which is good, but it doesn't match up to the ML system in my car. Maserati does not offer a radar cruise control. I cannot buy any new car without something like the Lexus Pre-Collision System.

This is minor, but my wife sat in the back during the drive and was dismayed that in February there were no heated rear seats.

I forgot to check if the window switches lowered the windows with one touch, but you know what, at this point it didn't matter. I wasn't going to pay the equivalent of what I paid for my car new to get into a car that didn't offer, let alone exceed, what I already have.

So it looks like you guys are stuck with me for the foreseeable future!

RandyV

Yes, indeed to all those points.

But you don't buy a Maserati for heated seats and a navigation touch screen.

You buy it to experience an exceptional driving machine.

But you know that.

CJITTY

Lol..epic post

Luxofreak

I can relate. Italian cars are for the driving experience (I owned a few) but absolutely not for creature comforts or reliability. Their electrical systems are a disaster, together with the Jaguars from before 2010. In fact, if you want to lose your hair faster than if you overdose your androgel, get any Italian car (Ferraris included) or one of those Jags. And the hairs won't fall off faster because of the winds, I guarantee it.

I8ABMR

some cars are great to drive. Some cars are great to own.

FLYCT

Some are BOTH, like a nice SC430.

JR

pmiller

Great post. I definitely agree with having to use a key. I hate getting in and starting my wife's car because I have to get the key out my pocket.
Did it have automatic high beams? My friend laughed at that one commenting, "yeah it's so difficult to turn the high beams down?"

Fhobbs

+1 on the keys.

broken_tsi

iTrader: (1)

My wife and I find these issues often when looking at other cars. She had an RX350 and we went to look at a Cayenne (I wanted the power), but we just couldn't justify losing all of the creature comforts for an ugly interior and no options like the RX.

I8ABMR

There is a reason Lexus sells more luxury cars than anyone else

Nospinzone

Wow, I'm surprised broken_tsi that the Cayenne lacks comforts and options that the RX has. I've never sat in one, but I would have thought that at least the options would have been comparable if not the feel of the interior.

Luxofreak, I was wondering if you had a typo in your post, and meant Jags before 2000 rather than 2010. When Ford owned Jaguar they did some significant improvements. One of them was to replace the Lord of Darkness (Lucas). My wife has a 2001 S-Type. The car has never had a warranty repair, in or out of warranty, and has never had a recall. The car will turn 12 years, and 140K miles, this March. It still drives and looks marvelous.

When my wife informed me it was the car she wanted, I joined a Jag forum like this one (except for about 200,000 fewer members). At the time there were a number of issues with the initial 2000 model and I was concerned about buying one. But my wife loved the styling of the car and was insistent. As it turned out most of those with problems were the V8 models, and even those problems were cured in the second year of production.

BTW, I still belong to that forum, but now posts have dwindled to literally 4 or 5 per month, kind of sad actually.

williakz

You can thank the "Ford wives" for the huge increase in quality and reliability in Jaguars under Ford's short ownership period. Ford execs, or course, had to drive the company's products, and their wives hated tooling around in crappy Lincolns and Mercurys when their non-Ford friends were all driving Lexi, Beemers, and Mercs. Once Nasser formed the Premier Automotive Group, every wife (and hubby) of a Ford exec dumped their domestics for loaded up Jags and Volvos. I was in Detroit at the time and the ecstatic Volvo dealer had inventory (S80 T6s) spread all over the adjacent grass field to meet the demand from ex-Town Car drivers on Ford's dime. Same with Jag. Since Mulally dumped PAG, the poor wives are back to driving MKZs or whatever.

Shibumi1

EXCEPTIONAL???? when it works.

they are service nightmares.. you can pick up a 08 or 09 for around 30k... so Ferrari built the engine.. ok so what tear the engine down every 10k miles.. yeah right..

krzyd

Some unknown rapper/drug dealer got popped while driving his Maserati in Vegas a couple weeks ago - All you need to know.

krzyd

Best thing about a Maserati was the line in that Ted Nugent song.