Here's Why the Maserati Ghibli Is a Terrible Way to Spend $85,000

this is a 2015 maserati ghibli sq4 when was brand new just a year and a half ago its base price was seventy eight thousand nine hundred dollars with options it was well over eighty thousand dollars and that makes this the single most overpriced car in the entire car industry period now I've rented this Ghibli here in Nashville Tennessee using a service called Toro which is this cool company that's sort of like Airbnb for cars you get a read other people's interesting cars instead of normal boring rental cars Toro has given me a budget to rent cars and I decided to rent this one because Toro is really the best way to experience the Ghibli that's because after a few days you get to give it back so why don't I like the Ghibli well I'll start off with a comparison between the Ghibli and another luxury sports today on the 2015 BMW 550i now under the hood the give me makes 404 horsepower that's pretty good but the 550 I makes 445 the Ghibli has 406 pound-feet of torque also pretty good but the 550 I has 480 pound-feet but it's not all about power modern luxury cars are all about technology for instance the 2015 BMW 550i has a 360 degree camera system does the Ghibli v 550i has a blind spot monitoring system does the Ghibli the 550i has a lane departure warning system does the Ghibli the 550i has a trick night vision camera system does the Ghibli the 550i has a forward collision warning system does the Ghibli the 550i has automatic braking if it detects an accidents about to happen does the Keyblade in the modern luxury car world high-tech safety features like the ones I've just named are really popular right now and this deeply didn't even offer any of that stuff as options actually I take that back shift into reverse and you'll notice a very poor resolution back up camera pop up on the screen of course you'd get a better backup camera in a Chevy Sonic and here's the kicker I already told you the Ghibli costs around 80 grand the 550i has more power more torque more safety features more equipment and it's starting price is sixty seven five add in all of the features I mentioned in your somewhere right around seventy thousand dollars which gives you a lot of money left over to spring for a vanity plate that says lol Ghibli now Maserati will tell you that I'm wrong because they added some but not all of these features for 2016 and that's true but isn't that kind of the point I mean the Ghibli came out way back in 2014 and all these features were already on every other luxury se and it wasn't like lane departure warning and Blind Spot Assist with some secret technology known only to a few secret engineers everything else had this stuff and Maserati was like now we're just gonna give it a backup camera and it's gonna be fine plus the ghillies list of problems goes way beyond its lack of equipment for example Maserati is owned by Fiat which is the same company that owns Chrysler now the unfortunate result of this mashup is that when you get inside the Maserati Ghibli in eighty thousand dollar luxury sedan you're confirmed with a lot of switches and buttons borrowed straight out of the twenty two thousand dollar Dodge Dart compact car I'm serious for example take a look at the door panel with the window switches the power locks the mirror controls those are literally lifted straight out of the Dodge Dart the same thing goes for the headlight switch the turn signal stalk and the start/stop button that's pretty much everything you press and touch just about every time you get inside the car now you might be wondering what exactly is the problem with a luxury sedan like this sharing switches and buttons with a compact car after all if they work what's the big deal well as I see if there are two problems with this number one is if I'm paying eighty thousand dollars maserati Italian luxury performance car beautifully Italian crafted I kind of want the features that I touch and look at and press all the time to be a little different than the ones you'd get when you run a dodge dart from Avis the other problem is functional when you start adding switches and buttons that weren't designed for a car they don't always work like they should a great example of this is the Maseratis turn signal lever it's borrowed straight out of a Jeep Cherokee the Dodge Dart etc and it works just fine in those cars but in this one there's a little conflict because the Maserati has these big metal shift paddles as it should being a performance car so when you go to use this star you're always hitting the shift paddle with your fingers when you're really just trying to put on the turn signal now a real car company making a real luxury sedan would engineer a special turn signal stock that sticks out a little further than the paddles so there's no conflict with your fingers when you're going to put the turn signal on but this is what happens when you borrow your turn signal stock from the Dodge Grand Caravan speaking of things borrowed from lesser vehicles the maserati ghibli z' infotainment system is Chrysler's UConnect now when you turn on it says Maserati touch control or Maserati touch Center or not I don't know something like that I don't really care but this is literally the same system as Chrysler's new Kinect I don't mean it's slightly similar and borrowed I mean it is the same infotainment system you'd get in a Dodge Dart I have to annoy incise about this system in the Ghibli and only its number one is the fact that it's placed right in the middle of the center controls which is where you'd expect it and then it's framed by a giant piece of really cheap black plastic my second annoyance is that the controls for the heated seats and the ventilated seats aren't actual buttons they're integrated into the infotainment system this is not a problem unique to the Ghibli but it is incredibly bad design automakers listen up if you want to turn on heated seats I just want to push a button I don't want to go into some touchscreen menu for climate and then push a little part of the touch screen that says heated seats to bring up a new menu and then you can adjust a little lever on the screen I just want to push a button here's another reason I know the Ghibli is not an $80,000 luxury car take a look at the panel gap between the door panel and the rest of the trim this panel gap is insane it's ridiculously large you could stick it of toothpaste in here as I shall now demonstrate alright time to stick a tube of toothpaste in a Maserati panel gap alright here we go it fell out it's too big we need a bigger tube of toothpaste there we go tube of toothpaste in a Maserati panel gap now folks I got to be honest big panel gaps are bad panel gaps where you can stick an entire tube of toothpaste between the panels those are really bad this panel gap is so bad that if you look closely you can actually see white paint from the door inside the panel gap there is no other modern car luxury or not with a panel gap this large given 1994 Chevy pickup and the panel gap between the door panel and the rest of the car isn't this bad this is an $80,000 luxury sedan now speaking of the infotainment system I've run into another interesting problem I cannot get the infotainment system to play any music from my phone even though there's a simple USB input I plug in my phone the USB input and it just says reading USB device the whole time reading USB device it won't actually read the device now I know what you're thinking maybe it's because the car isn't compatible with Spotify which is what I use to play music well that's a great point Spotify only has like 25 million users worldwide why should Maserati be compatible with that well maybe you're thinking it's because I have the iPhone 7 also an excellent point maybe this car is only compatible with the iPhone from the time it was built that's a great way to build a luxury car to last now adding to the interior woes in an effort to make this car look sleek and coupe like Maserati sort of tapered off the rear window line and as a result I'm 6 foot 3 and I don't have any room back here my head is literally hitting up against the ceiling adding to the claustrophobic feeling roll down the window and this is only as far as it goes down this is all the way down look at this I got like six inches of window over here across the phone work this feels get me out of here another one of the details that makes the Ghibli feel incredibly cheap are the dome lights now you can't just press the dome light switch and have the dome lights go on that would be too easy instead you really have to Jam your finger in there to turn them on the result of this is when you push the dome lights you can feel the entire housing on the ceiling kind of moving around like the incredibly cheap piece of plastic that we all know it is the final and perhaps most infuriating detail in the Ghibli is the shift lever my god the shift lever okay you have it in park you put your foot on the brake and then you pull it and if you pull it even a little bit it goes all the way to drive so then you push it back up to put it in reverse and it goes back into park you try to push it a little bit less and you're in neutral then you push a little bit more back up and you're back in park I've never in my entire life seen a gear lever that is this infuriating to use I can't believe anybody would have possibly ever signed off on this dear lever there are also periods where it decides that it's just not going to let you shift at the moment and then it kind of locks you out from moving out of any gear for a second or two and until it's ready so the Ghibli lags a bit behind its luxury car competitors in fact the Ghibli lags a bit behind in 1997 Hyundai Tiburon but all of that can be forgiven if it drives well so does it I'm going to take it out on the road and find out and of course to hear more of my thoughts on the Ghibli experience click the link below to read my column on autotrader.com slash oversteer the first thing you notice when you get inside you push the starter button it sounds cool I'm not going to pretend like it doesn't matter Adi knows how to do engine sounds and this car is no different it sounds really good which is impressive because this is at the end of the day just a v6 and from a sound perspective it really makes the most of it it's good inside but it's really good outside it sounds great [Music] here's one of the problems you realize the second you drive this thing back to back with something else about to Flora it's quick it's not that quick in fact at 80 grand this thing costs you're almost an m5 territory you're certainly in certified preowned m5 territory and this thing compared to an m5 everybody would just start laughing it started giggling yes make that comparison please drag race us now this car is reasonably quiet unless you know you really get into it and you want to hear that exhaust now and it does a pretty good job of keeping you fairly cocoon which is how a luxury car should be however one of the things I've noticed is that the ride quality in this car is is quite uncomfortable it is not a comfortable car the ride is tuned for you know sporty suspension so it's a little bit stiffer than most of the other cars I'm generally disappointed by the interior there is a lot of chrysler stuff i see at least three blank buttons as i look around - on the steering wheel one on the center console and the plastic around the navigation system is just unforgivable but that guy just stared at me like oh you got a maserati and that's that's the thing i mean you got to kind of decide about this car you're looking at a 550 i you probably realize most people who look at this car probably realize that the BMW the mercedes they're all better but they're not Maseratis and for whatever cachet the maserati name still carries that's important to people now if they keep making cars like this I suspect it won't carry that much cash a for a lot transmission shifts pretty lazily we've all kind of grown accustomed to dual clutches in a few cars in this segment have dual clutches and this does not and the transmission just kind of like really that's all you got with that said it's not slower than a standard torque converter automatic but it ain't faster either now handling is very good I'm not gonna just solely fast this car handling is quite good it's it's impressive I would say on a value for dollar and equipment level it is last in this segment on a driving experience level acceleration that's sort of mid-pack but handling it's promptly in the top two or three however the BMW is in the top two or three and all that stuff and that's kind of the problem in it and it's also a 15 grand cheaper so to me and his car is incredibly hard to justify without one of two things either admit that you like how it looks and really good he of driving a Maserati or get 20 grand off and from what I heard that's what the dealers are given and given huge discounts incredible lease specials they're desperate to move this product [Music] so that's the 2015 maserati ghibli sq4 is this car worth $80,000 absolutely not is this a very good car absolutely not however I have noticed two benefits about this car what is the attention I've been driving this thing around Nashville for the last three days and even as I've been sitting there fumbling with my ipod cursing the infotainment system people keep coming up to me and going nice Maserati so if you're the kind of person who cares more about image than pricing reliability build quality performance horsepower safety features equipment then maybe this is the car for you another benefit the market seems to agree with me about the Ghibli's fault because if you look on auto trader it used Ghibli models you'll find that early ones are starting to creep into the $30,000 range now I don't think this is a very good car for 80 grand but even I have to admit it starts to get appealing for about thirty five grand thirty five grand plus one of those iPod FM transmitter things [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 3,503,512

Rating: 4.4655204 out of 5

Keywords: maserati ghibli, ghibli, maserati, maser ghibli, maserati quattroporte, new maserati, maserati sedan, ghibli sq4

Id: nOZnqnB6xDo

Length: 14min 9sec (849 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 19 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/d0gus]

This is the StayatHomeMomserati. At least around where I live.

[u/volyer]

Nice to see a critical review from Doug (that appears to be very well deserved by Maserati). That infotainment/seats/AC system is insane, and is not going to age well.

[u/zillah1985]

Doug, you shit on a car better than when you praise it. Shit on more cars Doug!

[u/jesus_not_blow]

So you can buy a BMW 550i, Mercedes E43 AMG, Audi S6, or a Lexus GSF for less and not feel like you're sitting in a leather equipped Dodge Dart.. amazing.

[u/[deleted]]

$500 lease special for wannabe ballers.

[u/ExtraPlus]

Italian build quality with parts straight out of FCA's shitter.

From FCAGroup.com:

Maserati: cars that are immediately recognizable for their extraordinary personality

Fuck, it's like they know the cars are bad but they're selling it based on the nameplate alone. Wow.

[u/water_baughttle]

A good friend of mine was invited (and brought me as a guest) to a Maserati customer appreciation event where they offered test drives of all of their production vehicles, including the Ghibl before they went on sale. I had been in my friends GranTurismo and Quattroporte so I had high expectations, but my god was that thing a let down. The seats were uncomfortably stiff, it squeaked and rattled despite being brand new, and it wasn't very fast for a $70k+ car (the S6 and 550i would blow its doors off). Every time the Ghibli came up in conversation I would tell people they're much better off in one of its competitors, but they'd argue tooth and nail about how great it looks, the leather, blah blah blah. Thank god people are finally starting to realize what an overpriced piece of crap it is. If it was about $25k cheaper (MSRP), I'd speak differently.

[u/draginator]

Jesus, I think a Maserati must have insulted Doug's mom or something. Definitely deserved with all the points he made, but damn.

[u/nlpnt]

TBH, the fact you got through the entire video shoot without a breakdown is a real sign of progress for Maserati.