Chris R

Costly experience, lessons to be learnt

I bought a Maserati 4200 from Oyster Cars last year. It was at the end of the year and so it was soon tucked up for the winter. Having purchased the vehicle, I covered just 1500 miles before taking to a Maserati specialist for a major service check over and MOT. I wanted the car to be the best it could be and address any major issues. A whole host of issues were identified that would cause the car to fail. The Bill £8,000 in total. I bought the car from Oyster for £16K. That’s a total of £24K. I certainly felt I had been misled by Oyster Cars. Oyster Cars I am sure will have a different view I am sure. I was told the car had a full-service history and shown that the car had been serviced 3k miles ago. What they did not say was also 3 years ago. I made the fundamental mistake to not digging deep enough into the paperwork but equally they did not raise the fact that the car had been sat around for a long time and not used, this became apparent very soon. The tyres were just on the legal limit, all worn on the inside, but still legal. I was told given my planned mileage they would probably last a couple of years as would the brakes. However, I felt the car was not stable when I was driving it. I changed the Tyres to new Pirelli’s. The tyres I was told were past their life and were at least 10 years old, the rubber was hard and one had started to split and that this was why the car felt the way it did on the road. Having changed the tyres it was like driving a totally different car. The handbrake had failed its MOT before I had collected it. The MOT saying one side was not working. Somehow the car had been passed, the specialist I took it too had no idea how as they also identified that one side was not working, and that cables were damaged and had been incorrectly routed, causing them to rub on the drive shaft. Over £1,000 was spend alone on correcting this. The car also had a brake pipe with a bubble in it which I was told was so dangerous if I had ever had to brake hard the probability of brake failure would have been high. As the car had not been serviced for over three years, the pollen filter was full of Mould which is damaging to health if you use the air conditioning system. There were numerous other things wrong with the car, some I was more than happy to take responsibility for. In fairness to Oyster Cars they did make a small contribution, close to £800, but I felt there were other parts they should have covered that clearly would have been identified had the car been serviced. Oyster Cars quite rightly pointed out when I raised the total bill with them that the car was out of warranty, but equally they knew it would be stored over winder and serviced the following year, (I told them this when I purchased it) with very little mileage in between. Legally they are correct and of course I am appreciative of their contribution but felt they should have offered to cover some of the other defects. I now have an incredible car, but had I known the extent of the issues, I would have probably purchased from a Maserati dealer at an overall cheaper cost as no Maserati dealer in my opinion would have allowed a car to have been sold in this condition. My advice to all those that read this, if you are going to purchase a performance vehicle ensure you do your homework and do consider who you buy from, perhaps I was just unlucky, perhaps others that have used Oyster Cars have had a better experience, than I had.