RE: GTV-6 stuff...

[JeffreyOlson@domain.elided]

How would you like to have been the first owner?  Occasionally a person will 
come up to me and ask about one of my Spiders.  Most have owned one in the past 
and typically say they loved the car but it was in the shop all the time.  
Another comment is that they haven't seen one in years.

I'm sure I exaggerated a little bit about the GTV-6 money pit but I'll tell you 
I put more cash into those GTV-6's than I care to admit!  Much more so than all 
the older BMW's I've gone through.  The Spiders have not been bad at all.  Once 
I fixed the previous neglect of each, they have all proven to be safe and 
reliable and stayed that way with just occasional TLC. 

Of course each of my GTV-6's was a bit of a project to begin with but I don't 
think there is a V-6 Alfa (GTV-6, Milano, 164) out there without a TON of 
repair bills somewhere in its past ownership history. In the end, they all seem 
to only sell for $1,500-$2,500!  Tough market out there for older Alfas...

Would I like to buy another?  Definitely!  It's amazing how often you come 
across the same GTV-6's for sale on eBay, gtv6.org, etc.!

I switched from Alfa to BMW a few years back and have since brought a number of 
5 and 6-series back to life and really enjoy it and have learned a lot.  

However, something was missing, so I had to get a cheap Spider or two (or 
three, four, etc.!) to get my 'fun' car fix.  I even talked a few local friends 
into buying one of mine so now a few more Alfas roam North Carolina.  I will 
say, it's VERY rewarding and reasonably inexpensive to tinker with the Spiders.

I struggle to maintain a very small and ever-changing fleet of occasionally 
reliable, sub-$2,500 BMW's and Alfas.  Collectively, they are worth about the 
same as the yearly depreciation of a new economy car.  

That's my flawed rationalization but as long as at least one is operational at 
any given time, my wife seems to put up with it!  Of course, she only drives 
the best Bimmer!  Funny, I bought that car for myself... 

Jeff
'78 Spider (For Sale!)
'84 Spider Veloce
'88 BMW E28 535is (240K miles!)
'91 BMW E34 535i w/RARE 5-speed!
> <snip>
> > No matter how well taken care, any time a GTV-6 changes ownership, it
> will 
> > require at least $2,000 of additional work within the first year or
> so!  When 
> > it comes time to sell, you will get way less than what you have in it,
> and the 
> > next victim will sink even more money into it!
> <snip>
> 
> Not mine.
> 
> I bought my GTV6 remotely (I'm in Mass, the car was in Florida), from
> the second owner.  I got comfortable enough with the guy that I sent him
> a check for the full purchase price, so he could send me the title.
> 
> He bought the car with 27k miles on it, and then proceeded to face every
> Alfa v6 30k issue, one by one.  One head gasket, then the other, then
> the timing belt broke, then the tensioner started to leak, then the
> water pump...
> 
> He got *some* good advice from the local Alfa club/dealers, in that they
> told him about updated head gaskets, etc, but perhaps not the most
> valuable piece of advice he could have gotten - take it all apart and do
> it all at once.
> 

> So, by the time he offered the car up for sale, only 4k miles later,
> he'd had each head off a couple of times, and taken apart the front of
> the motor quite a few times.  He was totally fed up with Alfas, as far
> as he was concerned they were complete pieces of crap.
> 
> I felt obliged to tell him that he'd basically just fixed everything
> that was going to break for the next 30k miles, and that at 60k all he
> really needed to do was take apart the front of the motor once to do the
> water pump, tensioner, and timing belt, but he wouldn't listen.
> 
> I got a completely rust free car for a good price, then drove it for 30k
> trouble free miles before doing the 60k service.  It's been another 10k
> - 12k since then, and still the car has been completely trouble free.
> 
> Sure, I probably got the one single exception to your "every GTV6 will
> need $2k worth of work done to it" rule, but I thought I'd point out
> that it is possible to find one that doesn't need a pile of work right
> off the bat.
> 
> bs
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