What can y'all tell me about the Maserati biturbo? A friend of mine and I are thinking of going to look at one today, good car? bad car? steaming pile of poop?

a friend of mine has one

a really beautiful car, extern and especially intern
very comfortable seats, lots of leather, and wood

it's a rare understatement car, no headturner

engine sounds beautiful

car runs great and very fast on the highway

but it handles terrible on twisty roads, especially through the mountains
his car has about 220 HP, but on narrow twisty roads I can hold it with my teener ... with 76 HP (!!!)

every now and then he has problems with this very tricky engine
and hardly anybody knows how to work correctly on this engine


all this may sound a little subjective - but I really don't want such a car ...
Gustl

generally they fall into that category!!

But!!

I like them

they are unique. Kinda powerful engines

hard to get parts for

etc.

I helped a friend lower his many years ago. It was a very pretty car but a never ending problem child. Faaast once the turbo's spooled but gutless off line like most turbo cars of its era. His was a early one and turbo's blew though a big weber carb. You can imagine how well this worked. The later ones where injected i think. The carb was alway a issue, would not pass Cali smog well, electical problems. Nice soft leather seats though! I always though of it as a italian BMW 325.

Even if you got the car for free budget 2K for turbo rebuilds right of the bat and start counting the dollars spend after that.

John

same thing happened to mine...

$1700 for a major tune 10 years ago.
shimmed valve tappets cost$$$ to adjust
yep, they look great from the inside and mine porpoised if i came in hot to a turn from short wheel base i think.
i always wished mine ran right all the time but the truth was it didn't.

there's many other options i'd rather choose and dump all that maintance cost into something high perf and newer tech.

They are very nice looking cars. I am friends with someone who is pretty much the only maserati mechanics I have ever heard of.

He has many biturbos and knows the cars inside and out. Only reason I would even consider that car is because I know him. Otherwise I wouldn't consider it because no one knows how to work on them.

Last time I saw him he had 2 biturbnos and there midengine car which I don't know the name.

I came this close [] to buying one new in 1985, a blast to drive with those twin turbo's whinning...looking back, my girlfriend thought it looked like a Nissan, sure am glad I didn't buy one, I was also looking at a 944 too, ended up with a Saab 9000 Turbo...I guess I didn't do that well with the Saab either.

Funny, I was just thinking about the Maserati bi-turbo powered 914 that I saw on ebay a couple months ago. Sounded fun, but if that engine ever went wrong... Eek.

Flaming pile of poo!!! have fun with the belt changes....oh and rebuilding the carb....actually the rebuild isn't that bad but getting the bastard out of the " carb box" sucks a donkey D"#%$ Yeah instead of a NORMAL turbo setup the geniuses put the carb in a box and ducted the turbos to the box! Oh and if you ever have to change the steering pump you had better find a REALLY good priest to watch over you and exorcise the demons that will be coming out of your mouth. I believe I actually spoke in tongue........4 yeah 4 f'in hours to get it OFF. I told the boss I WOULD NOT be putting that P.O.S. back together. and I didn't ! Oh and I don't like them either. Looks like a F'in Chrysler to me