MAserati Ownership: Wipers

I've owned my Maserati Ghibli for just over a year and have driven a little over 21,000 miles in it. As with all cars you have the odd niggle and need to replace some of the normal wear and tear parts such as tyres etc.

Just before Easter I noticed that first the passenger side wiper, and then the drivers side, were streaking instead of cleaning the windows correctly. Checking the blades both had split. Odd that they'd go at the same time, but this is a Maserati perhaps they are designed to?

Of course, being Maserati, this is not an off the shelf part and the OEM parts are only really available online or from a main dealer. As it was the Thursday before Easter, and we had an event to go to on the Monday, I thought I'd call the local dealer, reserve a set, and pop down to pick them up. Its a 20+ mile drive but I could easily incorporate it in my day.

I called the dealer and got through to the service department. "Do you have any wipers for a 2015 Ghibli S?"

"We don't have any full sets of wipers.". Sounds of typing. "We do have three driver's side wipers. What is your registration number?"

I gave him my registration.

"The three we have are reserved for other customers. We don't have an ETD for any more wipers."

As you can imagine I was a little dumbstruck at this point. Had there been a sudden surge in failing wiper blades for Maserati Ghibli? If they didn't have any how didn't they know when they'd be getting more? Weren't they on order? I bade the chap a good day and pondered my options. The weekend weather forecast included heavy rain, I had an event to attend on the other side of the country. I really needed some wipers.

Looking at the Maserati dealer network I found that the next nearest dealer was in Stockport, an hour and a half away, and called them. They had plenty of wipers and I reserved a set. Asking when they'd be open I had the choice of today, or Saturday morning. Not really wanting to dash across on Saturday morning to get there before 12 it would have to be today. I made my excuses to work and jumped in the car to drive over and pick them up.

One option could have been to have had them posted but that wouldn't have guaranteed that would have them in time.

A couple of hours later, the traffic was awful so we took a nice detour across Saddleworth, we arrived at HG Owen in Stockport. I asked for the chap I'd spoken to on the phone and we were offered a drink whilst we waited.

After paying the required £91 plus change I had a new set of wipers. They asked whether I wanted them fitting? At that price, and with the offer, I couldn't possibly refuse. A few minutes later I had nice new wipers and set off back home. This time via Holme Moss, I might as well take advantage and find some fun road, and Holmfirth for lunch.

View gallery image

This was an unexpected state of affairs. I didn't think it possible that I wouldn't be able to get wiper blades at the drop of a hat. I had thought that this would be something that all dealers would have plentiful stock of. I'm now considering whether I need to have some sort of plan in place for our trip to Italy later in the year. Its one thing to be ringing around dealers in the North of England for spares. I'm not sure I want to be ringing around Northern Italy.