Hello,

I am reading all these posts trying to get a picture of what the owner's experience is like with a V12 Aston.

Since I own and drive a V12 Mercedes, I have realistic expectations and, frankly, just want to make sure that Aston is only slightly better when it comes to technical guidance for preventative maintenance before I buy a DB9 or Vantage (2009 or newer).

I also have a specific questions:

- is it possible to entirely disable (turn off) the stability control in an Aston?
- What type of suspension issues have you seen and what to look for?

Also, I will make a broad assumption that maintenance of an Aston cannot be much more expensive than a maintenance of a V12 bi-turbo Mercedes.

Thank you,

S.

 

Fear not... I've had a new AMG Mercedes that saw the service center more than any other new car I've ever owned. I've had 3 Lagonda's - these old Astons fall apart just looking at them ... no kidding while I was lookimng at my Series 4 lagonda, the fuel door popped open when the mechanism decided to commit suicide. These hand built cars were like owning an Airplane - each flight (or drive) had a pretty good chance some minor mechanical or electronic glitch would makes itself known... off to the shop. In 2007 I decided to buy my first new Aston, a 6-speed Vantage, as my everyday driver... I warranteed it for 5 years and figured I'll drive this car as hard as I can (without trying to get a ticket) and if it breaks, so what I've got a 5 year warranty. In the next two years the total costs including two annual inspections was about $1,000. Two warranty issues was all. Even the brakes and clutch were good after 24,000 HARD miles. The recession forced a quick sale and as soon as I got my business stable again 1 1/2 years ago I bought an 09 Vantage Sportshift... about 12,000 new absolutely trouble free miles driving somewhat aggressively.

I have buddies with DB9's that have some pretty large fixit bills... the Vantage seems to be more bullet proof.

 

V12orbust,
My 2009 DB9's annual service at my Houston dealer runs about $1800. You can treat that as the high end of expectations on annual service costs. I did have a headlight squirter give up, necessitating a pricey headlight assembly replacement, and the AM band on the radio was dead by 2k miles (common failure).

 

Hello again,

All of these issues I have read about so far sound fairly minor in comparison with keeping the V12 Mercedes on the road. My frustration with Mercedes is the downtime and funky debugging which gets in the way of enjoying a car.

I am still "debating" whether to pursue a 2008 or 2009 DB9 / Vantage V12 and decision will likely be made in a flash One "soft" criteria is to get an Aston with a built-in Bluetooth.

thank you for sharing your experiences.

 

Go on . . . there's got to be a good story there.

Oh, and V12orbust, though I'm biased (and tempting fate), the 2011/2012 V12 Vantage has a) a V12; and b) been faultless for me thus far.

 

In 1989 when my software company was just a decade old I began making some serious $$$$ but nowhere near Lagonda income. I was in Charlotte and an Aston dealer was across the street from my hotel with a shiny new $250,000 Lagonda sitting there. The salesman said - go ahead sit in it! An hour later I got out thinking - you'd need to be really wealthy way beyond my income (however a few years later I did buy a new Piper Malibu for more). In person, the Lagonda was the most impressive thing I ever seen - long as a suburban and low as a Corvette, and those 6 headlights and interior! Best yet was the smell - nothing like those older Connly leathers and woods.

Not too long afterwards (maybe 4 years) I was able to buy a pristine black 1985 Lagonda in Atlanta for $69,000. My thought was - wow what an investment, someday it will be worth a million! It had 3 CRT screens, being that the digital displays did not work, they replaced the original digital's with more complex technology that also didn't work so well. Remember TV's of the 1950's with their vertical roll adjustment? Same thing, only no adjustment to stop it. Irritating? Yessir.

Anyway, I eventually sold my investment for a whopping $969,000 (under the projected $1,000,000), or just $31,000. The shocks were shot - you know how much original Lagonda shocks were quoted? $8,000 each at the time (I've since acquired 3 'new' original shocks I still have for considerably less investment - just in case I somehow end up with a 4th Lagonda).

Just a year or two Lagonda-less and I found a 1984 Silver with Blue interior, somewhat low miles, with almost all things working. Almost all things working in Lagonda terms especially the digital era means 51% of the electronics worked. Right hand drive made it even more interesting. That car cost me $14,000 and I put 18" Wheels which really updated the look. Drove that a few years and sold it for $18,000!

Then I found a pristine 100% everything working (really) Series 4 with a tan exterior and interior only 8,000 miles. The Series 4 had the 6 fixed headlights and all the previous bugs worked out - bought that for $36,000 out of West Palm Beach - a private collection being a forced liquidation because of some bad things the person must have done. Had that till 2006 (when I ordered a new 2007 Vantage) but only drove it as a dinner car, so in the years I had it, I put only 2,000 more miles on it. An East Coast dealer called me with a $42,000 offer which I took and within two hours of that call a truck came to pick it up. The next day I saw it advertised on their website for $89,000. I thought good luck with that price. Two days later the same ad said sold.

Now Forbes says the old Lagondas will be the next million dollar collectors Aston Martin!

Yay! I was right all along- not crazy after all. Sure wish I'd kept that Series 4... she was a beaut.

 

That was a beautiful write up on your Lagondas! Thanks! I have a weak spot for that car . . .

 

Taylor Swift was born...

 

Great Write up on the Lagondas!

 

Thats a great story about the Lagondas.

I've never been interested in old stuff (cars, motorcycles, music etc.), but that Lagonda does keep catching my attention, it is one of the few classic cars that does look really beautiful to my eyes, you've got me looking at car ads, surely they can't be that expensive to run?

 

Great story!

I remember calling the leather on my Lotus Esprit TT "CawNawLi" leather in 1997 and my friends still make fun of me (I'm from New Yawk)

 

Guess I can update this...

I mentioned it in passing in another thread, but my fuel gauge stopped working a couple months ago. Either a bad ground or a bad sending unit. Fuel system works fine, my gauge just reads zero (or close to it) at all times.

 

I am tempting fate myself by looking at 2011 Vantage V12 )))

Then I read the Lagonda story and reminded myself of my own "adventure" with the front struts on the Mercedes. Point is, when these cars are tuned, they are a blast to drive and all nagging issues are forgotten

 

@Prefurbia:

>>>I've since acquired 3 'new' original shocks I still have for considerably less investment - just in case I somehow end up with a 4th Lagonda).

I just know that you will get that 4th Lagonda ))) since you are stocking struts/shocks for it ))

Awesome story!

 

My fuel gauge works fine, but reads close to zero whenever I've had a proper drive in the car