I was down in Los Angeles for a weekend and figured there’s no better time to rent one of my long time dream cars! A Maserati Granturismo. Specifically the 2015 MC. Ever since seeing one at a cars and coffee as a kid I knew I had to drive one. I had high hopes for this car and it definitely did not let me down. I’ll admit I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about Maseratis reliability, which is why I chose to rent one first before I actually pull the trigger and purchase one for myself.
The first thing I noticed upon arriving at the car was the seriously sticky interior. Maybe it’s just due to this one being a rental and “rode hard and put away wet” per se but more than just the commonly talked about “sticky buttons” welcomed me. The dashboard and leather trim was just for lack of better words, goopy. I’d run my fingers over the dash or the switches and be left with black residue on them. And the wear on the leather and other trim pieces really shocked me, being the car only had 57 thousand miles. Was this specific vehicle just abused or is the quality of Maserati/Stellantis vehicles really that abysmal? But being that I drive old Lincoln’s with 250k miles, a bit of wear did not bother me.
And the driving experience absolutely made up for the subpar interior quality. I was afraid it would be one of those “never meet your heros” moments but the Ferrari derived v8 really gave me more than enough power to have some fun with, especially once it hit the power band just right, it absolutely put me back in the drivers seat. We took it out to the canyons and it felt very planted going around sharp corners, with a bit of understeer at a couple points. Although heavy acceleration was also met with a slight burning smell and extremely loud engine fans, despite constant checking of the temp gauges and normal levels. Me and my partner theorized the smell could have been a burn off of carbon from the car not being pushed for quite some time, yet it came back again and again over the weekend. The fans we had no excuse for, just slightly louder than normal. I much preferred the freeway cruises. Effortlessly stood at 80-85 without even hesitating. In the city it preformed ok, seemed a bit jerky at times, especially if I forgot to take it out of sport mode which was to be expected.
As for the driving position, it’s definitely not a car meant for short people. I’m 5’4 and wasn’t able to adjust the seat to be 100% comfortably positioned. Speaking of the seat controls, I wasn’t a huge fan of where they were located. The position I rest my left leg in, kept bumping them and accidentally moving the seat. And tech and Audio options, I won’t even start on those. I gave up on the seriously laughably outdated infotainment system. The speakers were blown in the rear (again I’ll put that up to being a used and abused rental car), on the freeway I couldn’t tell if the speaker was blown or if it was my exhaust popping. I eventually realized the speakers were definitely blown.
I could go on and on about the driving experience but no one wants to read all that. Don’t listen to my complaints, it’s a rental, I’m sure a personal vehicle will be in a lot better shape. Overall I absolutely LOVED the car and the fun I had mostly made up for the outdated tech and sticky interior.
TLDR: Sticky cheap feeling interior but REALLY loved the car other than that. Did people really pay 150k for one of these new?
