Tuesday 12 November 2013

The Hunt Part III

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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