Re: RE: GTV-6 stuff...

[George Graves <gmgraves@domain.elided>]

I agree. When I bought MY GTV-6, it looked quite disreputable so I had 
it painted. In the two years since I've bought it, I've replaced the 
water pump, the belt and tensioner (don't do one without the other) 
essentially because I was 'there' anyway with the water pump, the lower 
steering knuckle, and one of the rear disc brake rotors. If one doesn't 
count the paint job, I've got about $400 in the car in what amounts to 
normal maintenance and another couple of hundred for the steering 
knuckle and broken brake rotor. Other than that, its been just a 
question of start it up and drive it. Yeah, I've done some cosmetic 
things like having the blown-out seat bolster on the driver's seat 
replaced by an upholstery shop, fixing a faulty tachometer (by heating 
up the pointer and bending it back to the original straight position) 
welding an extension on to the shift lever to fix the botched job of 
shortening the stick done by a P.O. (Previous Owner) - I actually used 
a shift lever from a wrecked car, cut it to length and had it TIG 
welded to the 'stump' of the original one. It is now about 4 inches 
longer than stock, and everybody who's driven my car says its better 
that way. Its now like the shift lever in a Ferrari 250 SWB where the 
shift knob is just inches the right of the steering wheel...
I've done other small cosmetic things as well, but these aren't 
drive-train, suspension, or brake issues and don't affect reliability 
or driveability.  The last maintenance item I replaced on my car was 
the rear brake rotor and that was over a year ago. If I sold the car 
tomorrow, the new owner would be under no requirement to do anything to 
the car or spend another penny on it. Just drive it. Of course he COULD 
do things to it. It could use all new leather upholstery, it could do 
with all new suspension bushings and new ball joints -not that the ones 
in the car are actually bad, but let's face it, 140,000 miles isn't 
exactly once around the block and new ones would improve turn-in and 
generally crisp things up a bit. There are other things that could be 
done, but these are RESTORATION items not maintenance items. All in all 
I've got a good-looking, great sounding and good running GT sports car 
that one doesn't see every day. A car that's reliable and can be 
counted upon to start first time, every time in any weather, and has 
NEVER broken down on me or left me stranded. I'd say that's a pretty 
good endorsement for a 16-year old Italian exotic automobile.

George Graves
'86 GTV-6



On Thursday, Dec 19, 2002, at 11:47 US/Pacific, alfa-digest wrote:


> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 11:41:46 -0500
> From: "Brian Shorey" <bshorey@domain.elided>
> Subject: RE: GTV-6 stuff...
>
> <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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