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Buying a 360 Manual

stuarts said:
Yep, I know. £28K was for engine work and not just the swap-out.
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What kind of engine work generates a £28K bill?!!!
I think Pete raises a very significant point that although the Modena is listed as covering twenty odd thousand miles, what does that matter if the engine may've already been around the clock? It surely takes more than a pair of carbon backed seats and some tyre shine for a car to be worth the thick end of a hundred grand. Look closely at the pictures, the thing is covered in scratches. From the front it looks like it's been driven through a meteor shower and the rear panel appears to have been polished with some emery cloth.
All of the above can be forgiven if a car is marketed at the right price point. That's not the case here.
 
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I wonder why the seats needed re-upholstering after only 24,000 miles? And a shiny steering wheel (similar shine to my Esprit steering wheel and that had 109,000 miles on the clock).
If that car's got genuine mileage I'll eat my hat.
 
So the owner spent £28k on an engine and then swapped into the car he is keeping, leaving the engine with unknown spend on it in the car he's selling??? Is that right?

Invalidates all the service history IMO and unless you can get the full story directly from the owner and are absolutely satisfied I would look elsewhere.

Only other case I'm aware of this sort of thing is Scott's (ratarossa) engine swap to convert a spider to have a challenge car and de-challenge a challenge. But that's a different story LOL...
 
So......

Dave at JZM has been really helpful. He got the chassis number and reg from the other car, checked the engine number on that and has done MOT checks back. The 'donor' spider had also done 24K miles, all the bills for the engine work, gearbox, clutch etc have been done on this car at the time of the swap.
The owner sold the spider immediately and this was going to be his keeper (then he got into Porsches and run out of room - so the story goes!)

The car really is in great order, other than some 'sticky' switches. I'm going to go back tomorrow. They know that the car is WAY over=priced, so if at a considerably low price, it could be a great driver that I can pile some miles on.
 
stuarts said:
So......

Dave at JZM has been really helpful. He got the chassis number and reg from the other car, checked the engine number on that and has done MOT checks back. The 'donor' spider had also done 24K miles, all the bills for the engine work, gearbox, clutch etc have been done on this car at the time of the swap.
The owner sold the spider immediately and this was going to be his keeper (then he got into Porsches and run out of room - so the story goes!)

The car really is in great order, other than some 'sticky' switches. I'm going to go back tomorrow. They know that the car is WAY over=priced, so if at a considerably low price, it could be a great driver that I can pile some miles on.
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I hear what you're saying but it still doesn't add up.

Just to get it straight - AV did £24k worth of work to THIS car doing almost everything you can think of. A month later the owner takes the engine out of it at a different place and swaps it for an engine from his Spider and that engine required serious engine work as well gearbox work and clutch work all of which costs another £28k. And he wanted to keep this car. Correct?

Leaving aside the question of why a 360 Spider engine would require £28k worth of work to engine, gearbox and clutch after only 24,000 miles, what kind of a person would swap the engines over taking out a perfectly good engine that had just been sorted by AV from the car he was keeping and substituting it for an engine that had effectively died in his other car and had to be rebuilt? How did he know the engine would suit this car more than the Spider - the engine/gearbox/clutch had just been rebuilt?

Sorry, I just don't buy it. Get the Spider's reg - at the end of the day it's the engine that's in the car they want you to buy so there's no reason not to tell you immediately. Also get this car's reg. I still think there's something they aren't telling either you, the new owner of the Spider or both.
 
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Btw, I still really like the look of the car in that spec. I just think there’s something missing in the story you’re being given and it’s something which will also stand out when/if you ever wanted to sell. Could be it’s that the new Spider owner has no idea the engine was taken out of his car and rebuilt and an un-rebuilt engine was put in in its place. Could be both engines needed work which might ask questions about the legitimacy of the mileage. Could be any number of things but as it stands the story just doesn’t hold water.
 
Are all 360 engines the same? Or were there different versions.

I think the only way to get to the bottom of this is to buy the car and then you will soon know! ;-')

If it was me I would put at least a £100 deposit using a credit card.
 
irarref said:
Are all 360 engines the same? Or were there different versions.

I think the only way to get to the bottom of this is to buy the car and then you will soon know! ;-')

If it was me I would put at least a £100 deposit using a credit card.
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From memory there were some revisions around 2001 after a couple of early cars caught fire. It was a long time ago but I think the revisions were at the same time the rain gulleys on either side of the engine bay were added (early cars had smooth sides).

Sent from my SM-G988B using Tapatalk
 
Just wondering what the justification was to swap 2 engines if identical - wouldn't it of been better to spend the engine swap money actually on the engine?

There's something missing from this explanation....
 
irarref said:
Just wondering what the justification was to swap 2 engines if identical - wouldn't it of been better to spend the engine swap money actually on the engine?

There's something missing from this explanation....
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A significantly more succinct way of saying what I have been, Jeff. :thumbsup:

At the end of the day there's no sensible way of saying an engine suits the car you're keeping better if that engine needs £28K to rebuild it. And I remain fairly sceptical about a 360 engine, gearbox and clutch all needing £28k worth of work after 24k miles.

But, like I say, do love the look of the car in that spec, not seen any others like it.
 
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The reg of this is W965DOO I think (VIN ZFFYR51C000120273)? I know this car well having done a good amount of work on it in May 2021 and then inspecting it for a potential purchaser when it was first listed by JZM. I'd like to say that it didn't have a £28k bill with me. The scope of work done with me was large and did cost quite a bit, but the vast majority of my invoice was made up of buying a brand new CS exhaust system from the factory (which, along with the original engine, is sadly no longer with the car).

If anyone is thinking of buying this car then please do feel free to give me a call and I will tell you what I know.
 
voicey said:
The reg of this is W965DOO I think (VIN ZFFYR51C000120273)? I know this car well having done a good amount of work on it in May 2021 and then inspecting it for a potential purchaser when it was first listed by JZM. I'd like to say that it didn't have a £28k bill with me. The scope of work done with me was large and did cost quite a bit, but the vast majority of my invoice was made up of buying a brand new CS exhaust system from the factory (which, along with the original engine, is sadly no longer with the car).

If anyone is thinking of buying this car then please do feel free to give me a call and I will tell you what I know.
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I did think there was perhaps a little more to the story than was being told. I very much doubt you'd spend all that money on a CS exhaust system and whatever else AV did to it only to have the whole lot taken out and put into a Spider you were selling while you kept the engine gearbox and clutch from the Spider that needed major work. My call is the owner keeping the Modena and selling the Spider and so wanting the Spider engine as it 'suited the Modena more' is the bit that's less than true, and it was in fact the other way round - he wanted to keep the Spider so took the Engine AV had done all the work on along with the CS exhaust system out of the Modena, replaced it with the Spider engine and put it up for sale. The other way round makes zero sense.
 
Alex' post #7 is telling for me where he says "It actually appeared to me as though the engine had been replaced. I raised it with the sales guy who seemed surprised I’d noticed and ask that we speak......." That to me is what set alarm bells ringing. I took it from that that they were conversing by email at the time and when a sales guy wants to speak rather than commit it to writing it always tweaks my suspicion. Perhaps I am, as I said earlier, a bit of a cynic :laugh:
 
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irarref said:
I agree with that too.

Move over Starsky and Hutch...Nosevi and irarref are coming through! ;-')
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:laugh:

I'd be really interested to check the mileage and MOT history of the Spider myself if I was the OP, after all that is the engine they are wanting you to buy...........
 
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voicey said:
The reg of this is W965DOO I think (VIN ZFFYR51C000120273)? I know this car well having done a good amount of work on it in May 2021 and then inspecting it for a potential purchaser when it was first listed by JZM. I'd like to say that it didn't have a £28k bill with me. The scope of work done with me was large and did cost quite a bit, but the vast majority of my invoice was made up of buying a brand new CS exhaust system from the factory (which, along with the original engine, is sadly no longer with the car)...
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For the potential purchaser though and regardless of the story of the car, at least the work being carried out at AV Engineering will have been carried out well. For the 360 model in particular you'll struggle to find a more capable workshop. I would absolutely take the opportunity to have a chat with Aldous.
 
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