Home at last

I finally got my Ghibli back this weekend after what seems an eternity. The last couple of weeks have certainly been eventful! As you can see from the picture above, I no longer have a large crack in the center of the front bumper, so now there's nothing to distract the eye from the fabulous shiny trident!


The replacement bumpers are of the new variety, made from a flexible plastic material versus the stiff fibre glass used for the old bumper that proved itself to be pretty brittle. As you can see in the picture above, the new bumpers are without the black rubber insert for protecting against scratches from minor nudges, but instead the new ones are a single tone. I think the new ones look nicer for it.


I also had the rear bumper replaced as the corners on the old ones had cracked as well as starting to flake a little around the exhaust outlets.

The new exhausts, given that they're much more flexible, require a steel plate to be installed across the width of the car onto which to bolt to provide some rigidity to the bumper. The factory was out of stock for the rear bar, with the part on back order and not available until September some time. I therefore purchased the part from David Askew instead, since he had it in stock. Despite being brand new and still in the original packaging, the part still required bending into shape before fitting. Maserati obviously did not have a tight tolerance on this part!

For the front stiffening bar, the factory did send a part, which was labelled as being for the front of a Ghibli. However, when Jorrit came to fit it, it turned out to have been mislabelled at the factory; it was in fact the rear bar from a Quatroporte. Although the factory said they had the proper part in stock and would send it immediately, after a couple of days it turned out that the part was also on back order at the factory and would not be available until September. I therefore ended up driving to visit David Askew, since I was over in the UK this weekend anyway visiting my parents. He had a used part in decent shape, which although required a bit of bending into shape, looked like new after Jorrit gave it a spray of paint.


The paint shop also removed the dent from the left front wing. They even touched up the paint, which is more than I asked for, but I'm not complaining since they did a good job! I'm sure I'll pay for it though.

Unfortunately, I'm still waiting to get the new front section exhaust to get fitted; the replacement needs a bit of refinement, but should be sorted soon.

It's great to have the car back since I've really missed driving it. I did have a bit of a scare today though... I was watching the voltmeter and noticed it slowly dropping from 12 volts, down to 11 volts and slowly less less. I was sure the alternator had packed in, so hurriedly drove back home before the car shut down. When I got back I got the multi-meter out and measured the voltage across the battery... 12.7 volts. Then with the engine running... 14.3 volts. Seems that the volt meter circuit has some problems... the voltmeter has been playing up for a while, intermittently on and off, but I've not seen it misreading before. Something new to look into!

Latest parts have arrived...

I dropped my car off this afternoon with Jorrit at Auto Forza for him to work on the list of jobs I listed a couple of posts ago. Hopefully it will be ready before the end of next week so that I can drive down to France in it with my wife for our holiday!

The new front section Larini de-cat sports exhaust was unpacked and waiting at Jorrit's workshop. As you can see below, it's seems overly complicated for a de-cat exhaust, with all the original bends in of the Maserati OEM exhaust and even the flange connection between where the two cats are located on the original exhaust. No wonder it wasn't cheap!


So both Jorrit and I are wondering why they've not just made a single, straight pipe section? I suspect it has something to do with them making it as a modular part, that can be used to build up any of the exhaust options... either sports cat, de-cat muffled or straight through pipes like I have. If they're really advanced, it might be to make the sections equal length or maybe to minimise resonance in the exhaust? I'll have to ask them...

Also arrived are my replacement bumpers. These are the new style ones fitted to the ABS Ghibli and later models, essentially made from a much more malleable material that is less prone to cracking as suffered by the bumpers currently fitted on my car.


Since they're much less stiff than my current bumpers, they require a steel plate to be installed behind them to keep them in shape and offer some resistance to impact. As you can see, they need spraying, which should get finished tomorrow.

There's always something interesting going on at Jorrit's when I visit... I arrived to find him playing with a Quatroporte V8 Evoluzione engine that he'd dismantled, which he seemed to take pleasure talking me though and explaining what he was doing with it... which of course I found extremely interesting!

I couldn't help but notice the black Shamal that he had in there too... I recognised it instantly as belonging to Mark... there's not many Shamal's around after all, so it was a fair bet. It was great having a look around the engine bay... there's so many parts common to my Ghibli. Jorrit treated me my starting up the engine so that I could listen to the warbling V8... hope you don't mind Mark... but it sounds great with a pretty smooth idle compared to my Ghibli.


Anyway, can't wait to pick up the car and try out the new exhaust... I really hope it will be ready next week!

The time has come...

For about three years I've had a big crack on my front bumber. It was caused by an old lady parking her Smart on my bumper. I've been putting off repairing the damage initially because I used to park the car in the street and so the chances of repeated bumper damage seemed pretty high.

For just under a year now I've been privalidged enough to own a parking spot in a private garage and so the chances of repeated bumper damage are dramatically reduced. I'm therefore getting more serious about getting the damage repaired, so last week I popped 'round to a local body shop to get a quote. It's not cheap!

My Ghibli still has the original bumpers, which are old style ones manufactured from quite a brittle plastic (it actually looks like they're made from a sort of fiber glass). The cheapest option would be to simply have the damaged bumpers repaired, by removing all the cracked paint, filling the gaps and having them resprayed. However, like I said, the material from which the bumpers are made is very brittle, so they appear to crack very easily. Therefore, simply having the bumpers repaired probably means that within a couple of years, there will be new cracks... since living in the city means living with other drivers who are not such careful drivers.

As kind of an example of this, I woke up this morning to find my wife making breakfast for us (what a great way to wake up!). She told me to have a look outside, since she'd had to move her car to a different parking spot on the road on which we live. When I looked outside, I noticed that a Renault Espace had its right rear end smashed up. My wife informed me that there was glass all over the road and that about three cars were damaged in the street. It seems that last night someone had smashed their car into the parked cars down the street and then driven off. We felt quite lucky that they'd missed my wife's car and it made me realise how lucky I am to have my car parked in a garage down the street.

As you'll recall from my post last week, it only takes one night being parked in the street to acquire damage. I had a quote for repairing the dent that the car received... €80 plus tax! And that only repairs the dent... they can't repair the scratch unless they respray the entire wing.

So, my dilema is, do I repair the existing bumpers (since there's cracks in the rear bumper too) or do I get brand new bumpers? It takes the body shop about 2 hours to repair the old bumpers before spraying them and I suspect that they charge something in the region of €60 per hour. So that gives me €120 plus tax to find a new bumper. Unfortunately, new bumpers will cost about twice this amount. However, new bumpers are more tolerant to subsequent knocks so in the long run will be cheaper to maintain.

Here's a couple of drawings of the parts that I need.


Item 24 on the first drawing and item 33 on the second drawing.

For some reason, the rear bumper costs about twice the amount of the front bumber?

It's probably going to be spring time that I get these bumpers repaired, since I'm not sure how much longer this warm winter will continue. I'm very suprised with how long the driving season is continuing this year, but I'm trying to make the most of it... I managed to drive the car three times this week!

The brakes seem to be settling in... they're a bit like the turbos to drive I find... the preformance isn't that impressive around town... I'd even go as far to say that the braking performance is not as good at low speeds, requiring heavier force with the braking foot. However, on the main roads and motorways, the performance seems to pick up substantially, although I've still not had to use them aggressively. But, like the turbos, the brakes seem to increase in performance the more that they're loaded. Just like when you accellerate in the Ghibli... you can lightly lift off the throttle and the rate of accelleration continues to increase. You get the same effect with the brakes... lift off the brake pedal slightly and you find that the rate of deaccelleration is still increasing. This is because the brakes are warming up as you use them, becoming more efficient... therefore, as they warm up, you need less brake pressure to achieve the same braking force.

So now, I need to keep one step ahead when braking as well as when accellerating! This adds a whole new dimension to the driving experience... and makes me even more enthusiastic to drive the car.

I have to say, when the Ghibli is performing on song (and it currently is), then it's an absolute pleasure to drive! I walk away from the car smiling and already planning my next journey when I can drive the car again. And driving in this colder weather is also great... the engine is performing with extremely good torque and I find myself quite content to accellerate from 80km/h in sixth gear. I have to put this improvement in torque down to the 3200 GT turbos, the new induction kit and finally setting up the boost controller optimally so that the wastegates stay closed right up to maximum boost pressure... before these modifications, the car would not pick up until about 4000rpm, but now it's picking up at 3000rpm... that's really noticeable when driving the car.

I'd really like another Ghibli driver to have a go in my car to see if they notice any differences. So I'll have to make an effort to join the local Maserati club and attend one of the track days.

Accidents do happen?

I had some problems with my Ghibli's alarm system on Friday night. I parked the car outside my office and popped inside to pick up a couple of things. When I returned to the car, it wouldn't open with the remote control, so I could only gain access with the key.

This on its own wouldn't have been a problem, but since the alarm system wouldn't recognise my remote, it wouldn't disarm the immobiliser. So I couldn't start the car!

I ended up having to leave the car parked in the street overnight while I figured out how to bypass the alarm system. Turned out this wasn't too difficult... as long as you have the original manual that came with the alarm where the magic number is written that de-activates the alarm. Since I recently moved, I had to search around the house for the manual, but once I found it then it was pretty straightforward to disarm the system.

So, I got the car going again on Saturday (I think the problem was caused by the battery level getting low, since once the car was started up again and driven for a couple of kilometers the alarm worked fine again) and drove it 'round to Auto Forza to have the new brake system installed (more on that later).

While at Auto Forza, I noticed some new damage to the car.


I was really annoyed. I left the car out in the street (and not a particularly busy or crowded street) for one night and am rewarded by a dent and scratch to the front left wing of the car. It looks like the damage was caused by a cyclist catching their pedal on the side of the car. I can only assume that they were drunk to have been so clumsy.

So, that's something new to get sorted on the car... it should be realatively simple to get the dent rolled out, but the scratch may be a little more difficult to remove. Will take the car the to body shop and get them to have a look at it when I get the bumbers repaired... if the weather stays as it is then that will be sooner rather than later!