Blackline Limited Edition Spider

[Cool Jesus]

The CF2 engine is pretty much trouble free. If his claims are supported by paperwork, I'd push for sub $6K or lower, it is a manual roof, big, big, big minus in my book, and itys detailing is as everyone is pointing out 'UNIQUE' so that alone will put a lot of buyers off.

• Check for oil leaks under tha car after the test drive. Check oil level and smell (Shouldnt smell burnt or be milky)
• It should idle fairly quietly too, if not thats just a noisy variator or sticky valve which isnt a deal breaker but certainly a negotiating point. Anyhting louder than a little tick I'd be concerned about
• Ask the owner to red line it (watch for their reaction ) or see if he will give you permission to push the revs, its should have some get up and go, and not be sluggish. If not then engine hasn't been looked after properly (3 owners on)
• Decals are easily removed with a hair drier, so see if you can use the choice add ons as a bargaining chip too
• Check the paperwork, recent tinming belts and registration are good so be mindful of that when your hammering the owner on price (don't get too silly as that's a $3k-$4k save just there)
• If its a manual roof, that means the seats weren't original, they've been installed buy one of the owners as I do believe I was corrected about cloth seats in the 916 range
• Drive the car with the roof on and off. Have the owner do the roof to see how difficult or awkward it is after their year of ownership

Whats key with alfas is service history, if this does have it, you should be OK. I'm cautious here as I've had owners state the same and produced a log book with no entry in it for the past 8 years??? and no receipts or invoices for work claimed to have been performed... but you say you';ev had dealings with this seller which adds some security.

[jim501]

Putting a few bits together. The car was sold via Rick Damelian's in Sydney  (not sure where I got Gold Coast from), and there is an extended warranty from Blackman & Sons for the leather. I found on another forum a guy who bought a same vintage 147 at Rick's and Blackman had installed his interior as well. So I'm thinking they were bringing them in with cloth interior and getting the leather done locally to save on costs.

In regards to the roof, I'm more inclined towards a manual as my family and I have never had good luck with roof motors, so more then happy to have 1 less thing to worry about packing it in.

[Cool Jesus]

True dat about the auto roof, they can have their issues. As I type I'm diagnosing a parasitic current drain from the roof electrics on mine and also notice a hydraulic ram is leaking feck! They are convenient though.

[jim501]

If these cars are worth around the $6-7k mark, there a lot of people that are going to be advertising their cars for a while! I've come across a 98 model with more kms for $14k....

[Cool Jesus]

That's only my perssonal opinion Jim, havent looked at the market for a while so I was only depreciating my spider. I'd love for it to be up in that range, but some sellers do over value their pride and joy, or maybe they are still up in that range.

[jim501]

So the inspection came back pretty good overall. Only 2 things that really jumped out. The major one is that the bump stops are missing, now I see that this is fairly common so does anyone have a rough estimate of costs or effort involved with that? Going to make some calls tomorrow to see what I can find out.