A friend of mine recently picked up a 2008 Gallardo. He's not really a motorsports guy, so I think it's more of a weekend wash-and-wax kind of car. It's very cool but I always assumed that exotic car ownership is only for people who have giant stacks of money to light on fire. He's obviously doing well but doesn't strike me as a dot.com billionaire or a trust fund baby. I bought a Cayman last year and it felt like a ridiculous and extravagant thing to do, even though modern Porsches are very reliable.
Are modern Italian exotics a safer bet than the old ones? Is my buddy onto something, or is he destined for a future of expensive or discontinued parts and $400/hr labor?
Dunno much about their reliability or lack thereof. I hope he likes the attention that the car will almost certainly get him. My neighbor bought a Lambo a few years back and sold it within months. She didn't like being mobbed like a rock star every time she went out in the car.
Worthy of note: I pretty much live in the boonies. If he lives in Beverly Hills, he'll probably be fine.
1988RedT2 said:
Dunno much about their reliability or lack thereof. I hope he likes the attention that the car will almost certainly get him. My neighbor bought a Lambo a few years back and sold it within months. She didn't like being mobbed like a rock star every time she went out in the car.
Worthy of note: I pretty much live in the boonies. If he lives in Beverly Hills, he'll probably be fine.
In one of the first few episodes of Roadkill, F&F proved that a rat rod gets more attention than a Lambo. If that’s your thing.
Mr_Asa
SuperDork
10/5/20 5:21 p.m.
Far from an expert, but I seem to remember that the regular maintenance on them suuuuuuucks. $500 oil changes, Challenge car maximum for plugs (including recoup,) and the tires are generally rated for under 10k miles, and are $400ish per tire, plus the cost of finding some place to mount them.
Since the Gallardo is related to the Audi R8, I wouldn't think it'd be much worse than other supercars and mechanically an VAG car, parts might not bee too hard to get. The Gallardo was apparently the best selling Lambo, with over 14K built until production ended in 2013. Seems to hold its value well. A quick browsing on Hemmings shows the cheapest one with a price listed at $95K.
How much attention it would get would depend on location. A car like that around here would raise eyebrows and camera phones, but nobody would bother you in the parking lot.
Yeah, where I live exotics aren't that uncommon so he may not get as much attention as he would if he lived somewhere else. I hd no idea they were built in collaboration with VAG, interesting.
Powertrain and much of the electronics are the same as the R8. Not that that car is cheap to maintain but it's not like an older Diablo or something. 10k miles out of a set of rear tires is really, really good! I think I'm gonna get 4000 miles out of the rear tires on my 996 Turbo. That's just what these cars will do to a proper sticky tire...
IIRC, the Gallardo was the first Lambo built entirely as part of VAG.
They're below $100k, so they're not crazy money. They're pretty solid, and with only driving it as a toy, not bad for upkeep. Budget $2k a year and you should be covered, probably even less most years. You'll spend more driving a new Tahoe for 2 years, if you count depreciation.
Lambos are like boats: the best one is someone else's.
Mr_Asa said:
Far from an expert, but I seem to remember that the regular maintenance on them suuuuuuucks. $500 oil changes, Challenge car maximum for plugs (including recoup,) and the tires are generally rated for under 10k miles, and are $400ish per tire, plus the cost of finding some place to mount them.
I cannot believe I am even saying this but your light on your costs. Service is not cheap even my R8 is only a 20-30% less when it comes to back service over the bull.
If you want the exotic car ownership they are a really great car to get, I prefer the 430 to them but its still a really good wax and drive car. In SoCal they get treated like Camry's there are 14,000 of the things and they are all in the big cities so you will not stand out. The F430 does a bit better and people love seeing them in the wild. If its your first kind of steping stone exoitc then you cannot go wrong with any of the three mentioned. I would avoid the Aston's and the old Mcclarens they have even worse running costs.
A 401 CJ said:
1988RedT2 said:
Dunno much about their reliability or lack thereof. I hope he likes the attention that the car will almost certainly get him. My neighbor bought a Lambo a few years back and sold it within months. She didn't like being mobbed like a rock star every time she went out in the car.
Worthy of note: I pretty much live in the boonies. If he lives in Beverly Hills, he'll probably be fine.
In one of the first few episodes of Roadkill, F&F proved that a rat rod gets more attention than a Lambo. If that’s your thing.
It's possible that they may not have been completely impartial.
ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) said:
Yeah, where I live exotics aren't that uncommon so he may not get as much attention as he would if he lived somewhere else. I hd no idea they were built in collaboration with VAG, interesting.
The engine is two Jetta fives joined at the crank. IIRC the only significant difference between a Jetta head and a Gallardo's right bank head is the way the timing case is shaped.
Someone bought a cheap Gallardo with a fried engine and rebuilt it all with Jetta bits.
I know a guy who has a Lamborghini. He has five of them, actually. He said that his clutch failed at 5,000 miles. He had it flatbeded back to the dealership and voiced his displeasure to the owner of the place.
The dealership owner said, “Why did you buy a car like this? These cars are for pimps and drug dealers and athletes. If you want a car that you can drive, buy a Porsche. “
Shawnb
Reader
10/5/20 8:07 p.m.
Many moons ago, I owned an 04. Pretty much the only year I would consider unreliable as far as Gallardos are concerned (Not including Egear equipped cars)
If you have a good independent shop, service isn't too crazy. Especially if you're used to owning a modded car, and have to pay for labor. Mine did need a clutch, and that was fairly spendy, but on par with a twin disk for any other performance car.
These days you can find Gallardos under 100k all day long. I would assume a fair number of those have been neglected though.
Keith Tanner said:
A 401 CJ said:
1988RedT2 said:
Dunno much about their reliability or lack thereof. I hope he likes the attention that the car will almost certainly get him. My neighbor bought a Lambo a few years back and sold it within months. She didn't like being mobbed like a rock star every time she went out in the car.
Worthy of note: I pretty much live in the boonies. If he lives in Beverly Hills, he'll probably be fine.
In one of the first few episodes of Roadkill, F&F proved that a rat rod gets more attention than a Lambo. If that’s your thing.
It's possible that they may not have been completely impartial.
I was going to say the same thing.
But surely a TV show would never edit the show together in a way that's beneficial to them...........right? 
In reply to wearymicrobe :
Are Aston V8 Vantage really that unreliable? I heard they're very DIY friendly.
A 401 CJ said:
1988RedT2 said:
Dunno much about their reliability or lack thereof. I hope he likes the attention that the car will almost certainly get him. My neighbor bought a Lambo a few years back and sold it within months. She didn't like being mobbed like a rock star every time she went out in the car.
Worthy of note: I pretty much live in the boonies. If he lives in Beverly Hills, he'll probably be fine.
In one of the first few episodes of Roadkill, F&F proved that a rat rod gets more attention than a Lambo. If that’s your thing.
I shudder to think about the type of attention that a Rat Rod would bring. The only attention my Cayman brings is from distinguished older gentlemen who also own nice cars. I would imagine the same to be true of a Lambo. Oddly my squeaky clean NA Miata got more attention than anything, especially with younger women. I guess a guy in a $3500 car can't seem that threatening.
z31maniac said:
Keith Tanner said:
A 401 CJ said:
1988RedT2 said:
Dunno much about their reliability or lack thereof. I hope he likes the attention that the car will almost certainly get him. My neighbor bought a Lambo a few years back and sold it within months. She didn't like being mobbed like a rock star every time she went out in the car.
Worthy of note: I pretty much live in the boonies. If he lives in Beverly Hills, he'll probably be fine.
In one of the first few episodes of Roadkill, F&F proved that a rat rod gets more attention than a Lambo. If that’s your thing.
It's possible that they may not have been completely impartial.
I was going to say the same thing.
But surely a TV show would never edit the show together in a way that's beneficial to them...........right?
I bet it attracted the same amount of attention as a lunch buffet
In reply to GCrites80s :
sounds like all of you guys didn't actually watch it.. The Roadkill guys preferred the Lambo.. for attention: the rat rod drew attention from the girls.. guys were drew to the lambo..
yupididit said:
In reply to wearymicrobe :
Are Aston V8 Vantage really that unreliable? I heard they're very DIY friendly.
They are decent to DIY but I have limited experience really digging into them. Parts are not cheap and computer bits are hard to really to diagnose on the v12's. Even single person I know who has owned one is in love or hates them. All depends on the luck of the draw and if they had extended warrenties.
I would argue you an DIY a F360 easier then a Aston, the R8's are just big VW's under the skin same thing easy to do. Its a 50-60$ switch that goes out on the AC all the time on the R8's. Its just a engine pull to get to it if you have the V8 and the factory is doing it. Its a 10 hour repair if you do it yourself.
In reply to wearymicrobe :
Yeah I was solely asking about the 4.3/4.7 V8 Vantage from mid to late 2000's. Seems to be similar to the Jag XK.
yupididit said:
In reply to wearymicrobe :
Yeah I was solely asking about the 4.3/4.7 V8 Vantage from mid to late 2000's. Seems to be similar to the Jag XK.
Those are not bad. lots of hood and trunck latch issues, the clutch is a shared between the e gear and manual and its a pile of E36 M3. They take out the flywheel at the same time. Numerous failed e gear transmissions. Even in the end they never got that transmission right. Window alignment is terrible on some of them and water intrusion seems to be common.
Now having said that they sound great and if you get a good one and you do your own work they are not terrible.
