It was around christmas time and I had a few days off. A nice opportunity
to make another visit. On www.bigboystoys.nl I had seen a black 412
which now was on offer from € 30.000 for € 25.000 And it was a manual gear
as well, which usually tend to be slightly more expensive. Although I find the
price differences between automatic and manual marginal. I think only for true Ferraristi it
has more value. As said before, it’s for good reasons so many buyers opted for
the automatic version. I don’t consider it a sports car at least. The car was
in very good shape and looked clean. Of course there were some minor
body things but nothing worrisome. Personally I’m not a big fan of white
interiors but it was in fairly good condition.
In 1998 the car was imported from
France and according to the Dutch NAP in 2005 the mileage was 48.000 km. By now
the mileage was 72.000 km. Question remains, should it read 172.000 or a real 72.000 km. The tyres still had marginal profile left. So clearly they
needed replacement soon. That’s another downside of the 400i and 412, the TRX
tyres. A new set of 4 will bring you down easily a € 2.000,- Not my cup of tea.
The exhaust looked good as well but honestly I could not inspect it very well
due to the dark location, even though they were kind enough to supply me with
a light. Mind you, a new stainless steel exhaust will set you back another €
3.000,- And these are items I would be worried about the least.
Under the hood it
looked clean as well and the engine sounded properly. There was however no
documentation available nor any toolkits. There was little maintenance
history available which was carried out by www.italauto.nl And quite an expensive
bill as well. It revealed the car was repaired in 2005 due to a head leakage.
The complete engine had been taken out and got equipped with a new clutch as
well including various adjustments. I found one remark on the bill very
funny, it stated the following: “The cooling system has been filled up with
water and anti-freeze. This is cheaper but is less longer tenable than normal cooling liquid”.
Sure, that’s a huge saver on a bill of over 10.000 Euro’s. Next I expect that
cooling liquid is better than water.
In the dashboard locker there was a full
box of fuses, interesting. Below the dashboard locker I noticed they had been
fidlling with the wiring. I also remembered the hood had to be opened using
the emergency handles. Typical. All in all I think the car was professionaly
repaired but my gut feel said not to continue with this car. So I left it, but
somehow it stayed on my mind. And so it happened I visited it again a few weeks
later just to reassure myself. Still it left me without a convincing feeling.
Later in the year I even visited it a 3rd time when Jos was over. He liked it
very much but I thought it was better to keep searching. By than the price
was back again to it’s old value. By now the car is no longer for sale. When
checking the RDW register I can see it’s still not registered to a new owner.
Maybe it has been only temporary removed from the market.
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