Hi,
After years of hard work finally managed to scrape together enough money to buy "the cheapest Murcielago in america". In the words of Ed, "I'm trying to look like I won the lottery 15 years ago"
Anyways I just purchased a 2002 Murcielago In Giallo Midas with 29,xxx miles (gated manual since all the 2001-2003s were gated). Seems to be in ok shape but there's some unknown service history and all the common things that break are kinda broken, batwing motors broken, front trunk struts, the shifter knob is broken (and they did a cheap repair) all the coolant lines are old and cracking so they need to be replaced. I'm opting to have my independent ship out here go through the car. Since it's got almost 30k miles i was thinking i might have him do the valve service as well as a new clutch (in addition to all the fluids etc). The PPI i got from a dealer said there's not much else wrong with it other than what was listed above. Cosmetically the underside of the front bumper is pretty scraped up, side skirt intakes have a couple rock chips, but other than that it's cosmetically in decent shape for a 19 year old car with 30k miles. That being said i got a really really good deal on it so i felt like i had room to fix most things and still have quite a bit of equity based on current market values. I also plan to drive it quite a bit so having a couple scratches and scrapes don't bother me as much.
While I've owned quite a few performance cars this is the first "Italian" one so i'm hoping the veterans here could give me some pointers
1) things to look out for - maintenance that i should get done right away outside of what I listed above (PPI said brakes were good) - anything else prone to breaking that i might want to have addressed while my shop is already working on it?
1a) Any idea what an engine out service should cost me (ball park)
2) things to do that will help the car survive my ownership - i'm usually pretty hard on my cars but this one will be different (I go through a full set of tires every 5K on my daily driver X5M)
3) more importantly things to avoid doing to her that might make her unhappy with me
I had the car shipped in and delivered to my independent shop but they're pretty busy and I assume it'll take a little while for them to get around to my car.
Thanks in advance for your collective advice and pointers.
- The Horific
After years of hard work finally managed to scrape together enough money to buy "the cheapest Murcielago in america". In the words of Ed, "I'm trying to look like I won the lottery 15 years ago"
Anyways I just purchased a 2002 Murcielago In Giallo Midas with 29,xxx miles (gated manual since all the 2001-2003s were gated). Seems to be in ok shape but there's some unknown service history and all the common things that break are kinda broken, batwing motors broken, front trunk struts, the shifter knob is broken (and they did a cheap repair) all the coolant lines are old and cracking so they need to be replaced. I'm opting to have my independent ship out here go through the car. Since it's got almost 30k miles i was thinking i might have him do the valve service as well as a new clutch (in addition to all the fluids etc). The PPI i got from a dealer said there's not much else wrong with it other than what was listed above. Cosmetically the underside of the front bumper is pretty scraped up, side skirt intakes have a couple rock chips, but other than that it's cosmetically in decent shape for a 19 year old car with 30k miles. That being said i got a really really good deal on it so i felt like i had room to fix most things and still have quite a bit of equity based on current market values. I also plan to drive it quite a bit so having a couple scratches and scrapes don't bother me as much.
While I've owned quite a few performance cars this is the first "Italian" one so i'm hoping the veterans here could give me some pointers
1) things to look out for - maintenance that i should get done right away outside of what I listed above (PPI said brakes were good) - anything else prone to breaking that i might want to have addressed while my shop is already working on it?
1a) Any idea what an engine out service should cost me (ball park)
2) things to do that will help the car survive my ownership - i'm usually pretty hard on my cars but this one will be different (I go through a full set of tires every 5K on my daily driver X5M)
3) more importantly things to avoid doing to her that might make her unhappy with me
I had the car shipped in and delivered to my independent shop but they're pretty busy and I assume it'll take a little while for them to get around to my car.
Thanks in advance for your collective advice and pointers.
- The Horific