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I purchased a 2009 V8 Vantage Sportshift from Aston Martin San Diego - below is the clutch readings - anyone know if these reading are good, bad, or ugly?
There is no clutch measurement on any of those 2 screens. 2nd screen is hyd. Pressure. First screen is shift counts. Looks like they are trying to baffle you with bull$41T. Ask them for the BIT count reading should be a number between 1300-1900. If they didn't look beforehand and have shipped the car someone else is going to have to read the value.
this is my understating as well. I had a similar reading when I replace my clutch...I think mine was 1350 to 1325... after clutch replacement the spread was almost 600 points
The car is still at O'Gara in service - I shipped them a clip of the image I need, so I should have that back today - thanks the above is very helpful, and again, I agree, an AM shop should not have a forum help get the information needed.
Here is an update and what was going on with the dealer that I purchased the Vantage from. As stated above, the readings on the clutch were not the ones I needed, and voiced my concern. Even though I completed the purchase of the car a week ago, I was prepared to fly out from Minneapolis to San Diego today to get to the bottom of this, and yesterday morning got a call from my original contact at O'Gara to update me, and what a story:
The Vantage was $39,995 for a 55K 2009 Sport Pack Vantage with mostly Aston serviced, and no accidents. Represented as pristine except a few scrapes on the bottom front (typical) and two scuff marks on the wheels. Both glass keys included, but I only has very low resolution pictures and no idea on the clutch life. They inspected the car and there was about $2K in services needed (their cost) waiting for a pulley assembly that was to be installed on the 19th (yesterday)... I decided to purchase the car based on this information.
Shortly after I decided to purchase the Vantage, assuming buying from an Aston Martin dealer was the safest purchase, I began dealing with a different staff. What had happened was my original contact, the Aston Martin Tech at O'Gara, and others got Covid and were out of commission, so that's why I did not get the correct information. But after they installed the pulley yesterday that they thought was making a ticking noise, it was not the problem. The ticking was something going on inside the engine - bad enough that in order to find out what's the real issue they will need to pull the engine. They said that they cannot sell the car to me and will 'undo' the entire purchase, loan, and return my sizable deposit today.
The take away is that I decided to buy this Vantage as a 'safe bet' from an Aston Martin dealership which only a few of the 60 older ones (currently on the market) are being sold this way. Had I purchased from an individual or a used car dealer who might not have recognized the 'tick' as unusual, I would be in very bad shape right now. O'Gara did the right thing and I'm very thankful. They took the car in trade and only afterwards discovered the ticking in the inspection. Their loss, not mine. They immediately offered to reverse the deal. It took me about 4 months searching - so now I'm back at it - again.
Actually both! The car was a trade at San Diego, but they shipped the car to Beverly Hills where the Aston service resides to inspect the car and bring it up to the expectations of a Aston Martin sale.
Here is an update and what was going on with the dealer that I purchased the Vantage from. As stated above, the readings on the clutch were not the ones I needed, and voiced my concern. Even though I completed the purchase of the car a week ago, I was prepared to fly out from Minneapolis to San Diego today to get to the bottom of this, and yesterday morning got a call from my original contact at O'Gara to update me, and what a story:
The Vantage was $39,995 for a 55K 2009 Sport Pack Vantage with mostly Aston serviced, and no accidents. Represented as pristine except a few scrapes on the bottom front (typical) and two scuff marks on the wheels. Both glass keys included, but I only has very low resolution pictures and no idea on the clutch life. They inspected the car and there was about $2K in services needed (their cost) waiting for a pulley assembly that was to be installed on the 19th (yesterday)... I decided to purchase the car based on this information.
Shortly after I decided to purchase the Vantage, assuming buying from an Aston Martin dealer was the safest purchase, I began dealing with a different staff. What had happened was my original contact, the Aston Martin Tech at O'Gara, and others got Covid and were out of commission, so that's why I did not get the correct information. But after they installed the pulley yesterday that they thought was making a ticking noise, it was not the problem. The ticking was something going on inside the engine - bad enough that in order to find out what's the real issue they will need to pull the engine. They said that they cannot sell the car to me and will 'undo' the entire purchase, loan, and return my sizable deposit today.
The take away is that I decided to buy this Vantage as a 'safe bet' from an Aston Martin dealership which only a few of the 60 older ones (currently on the market) are being sold this way. Had I purchased from an individual or a used car dealer who might not have recognized the 'tick' as unusual, I would be in very bad shape right now. O'Gara did the right thing and I'm very thankful. They took the car in trade and only afterwards discovered the ticking in the inspection. Their loss, not mine. They immediately offered to reverse the deal. It took me about 4 months searching - so now I'm back at it - again.
This make no sense at all. Sounds suspicious that San Diego knew there were engine problems. Sent to O'Gara for another opinion. You dodged a bullet on this one.
I’m also looking to purchase a Vantage of similar vintage. Do you think that if you had a private PPI done they would have picked up the problem on a test drive.
I think you escaped a bad purchase. It was nice of them to say they can not sell a car with a bad engine. It is better for you this happened. If you purchased a car from someplace else you could have been stuck with a car that has engine trouble and a very large repair bill.
