Maserati certified pre-owned warranty

Maserati’s certified pre-owned program explained

If you’re new to the concept of certified pre-owned (CPO) vehicles, here’s the gist:

CPO vehicles give car shoppers a third choice between “new” and “used.” To qualify as CPO, a used vehicle must typically be in good condition, below a certain age and mileage and pass a rigorous dealership inspection. CPO vehicles also include a longer warranty than a regular used vehicle and may also include benefits like roadside assistance, complimentary loaner vehicles during warranty repairs, rental car assistance and more.

Every major automaker has its own CPO program, and Maserati is no different. To qualify as CPO, a used Maserati must still be within its factory warranty period (four years/50,000 miles) and pass a Maserati-approved 120-point inspection at a licensed dealership.

In terms of warranty and benefits, CPO Maseratis also come with a five-year/unlimited-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, 24/7 roadside assistance with towing and a generous rental car allowance in case the dealer doesn’t have a loaner.

But most of the value of buying CPO will come from the attached warranty, so let’s look at Maserati’s CPO warranty in detail.

» LEARN: What does a car warranty cover?

How good is Maserati’s CPO warranty?

For context, all new Maseratis come with the following factory warranty:

• Four years/50,000 miles of bumper-to-bumper coverage
• Four years/50,000 miles of powertrain coverage

Like most factory warranties, Maserati’s will automatically transfer to new owners until it expires, so if you buy a one-year-old Grecale with 10,000 miles on the odometer, you’ll still have three years or 40,000 miles of warranty protection left, whichever comes first.

Now, when you buy a CPO Maserati, the company effectively replaces your factory warranty with a five-year/unlimited-mile warranty also providing bumper-to-bumper coverage. In effect, buying CPO gets you one extra year of comprehensive protection and eliminates the mileage cap.

Maserati’s CPO page states that the CPO warranty adds “up to” two years of coverage, but that’s a bit misleading. In the words of our local Maserati dealer, “You get one extra year for buying CPO and the option to purchase another year for a total of six.”

As for pricing, we were quoted $2,950 to add a sixth year of protection to a CPO 2023 Maserati Grecale.

But circling back to what’s included in the original cost, let’s see how Maserati’s one-year/unlimited-mile CPO warranty stacks up to its competitors.

How does Maserati’s CPO warranty compare?

Compared with its luxury and performance competitors, Maserati’s CPO warranty is pretty similar to what Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Land Rover, BMW and Tesla offer.

Lexus, Porsche, Lincoln and Acura all offer an additional two years of coverage for a total of six, so if you’re looking to maximize your warranty coverage on your next purchase, you may want to consider one of those brands instead.

» MORE: Best CPO warranties

CPO Maserati benefits

In addition to the five-year/unlimited-mile warranty, CPO Maseratis come with the following benefits:

• 24/7 roadside assistance for the duration of the warranty, which covers towing, battery jump-starts, flat-tire changes (when the vehicle is equipped with a spare tire), fuel delivery (up to two gallons) and lockout services.
• A generous rental car allowance to help cover the cost of a rental car while your Maserati is in the shop for warranty-covered repairs.

All in all, these are decent benefits for a CPO program. Many other luxury CPO programs include trip expense reimbursement, which helps to cover the cost of food, lodging and transportation if your CPO vehicle breaks down over 100 miles from home – but Maserati doesn’t, which is something to keep in mind if you plan to take your GranTurismo on a true grand tour.

For the most part, automakers don’t explicitly list complimentary loaners as part of your CPO benefits (with Lexus being an exception). Instead, dealers simply give them out when they have them. Usually, new or CPO customers who need warranty work get priority.

The Maserati dealers we spoke with said that it’s much the same case with them, only they have far fewer loaners to give out in the first place.

“Being transparent with you, lots of Maserati dealerships are closing down right now,” said one in California. “As a result, we’re getting more and more customers coming to us, asking for the same number of loaners.”

When asked how you can improve your chances, he said, “The farther ahead you call us and schedule in advance, the more likely we can give you a loaner.”

Is a CPO Maserati worth it?

When you consider that CPO Maseratis come with an inspection, an unlimited-mile warranty and some extra benefits, it starts to look like a compelling package – especially for such a big investment.

But is it worth paying extra for CPO versus a regular used Maserati?

To find out, let’s look at just how reliable Maseratis are to begin with (which would help us determine the value of the inspection and warranty) as well as how much Maserati dealers are charging for CPO these days.

How reliable are Maseratis?

Maserati has long struggled with a poor reputation for long-term reliability.

While neither J.D. Power nor Consumer Reports collected enough data to rank Maserati overall, the latter outlet gave the Ghibli, Levante and Grecale a predicted reliability score of just 2 out of 5 (the Quattroporte, GranTurismo and MC20 supercars remain untested).

According to iSeeCars, the most reliable Maserati for 2024 is the Quattroporte — which itself ranked 18th out of 24 most reliable in its class.

To summarize, while data is scant regarding Maserati’s long-term reliability, what little we do know suggests that if you buy a Maserati, you’ll want the longest warranty possible to go along with it.

But how much is Maserati charging to buy CPO versus used?

» MORE: Maserati maintenance: cost, plans and service schedule

How much does a certified pre-owned Maserati cost?

To find out, we visited Edmunds.com to compare the average cost of a CPO versus used Maserati. To make the closest comparison possible, we only looked at used Maseratis under four years/50,000 miles old and with zero accident history. We also filtered out the MC20 supercar since its hefty $250,000 price tag would’ve skewed our results.

With those filters in place, we found 674 used Maseratis with an average asking price of $64,698 and 66 CPO Maseratis with an average asking price of $64,693.

Amazingly, Maserati is the only brand we’ve studied where the average CPO price was lower than the average used price, even after we filtered out cars costing more than $120,000.

When we got model-specific, however, things started to make more sense. Out of just 19 certified Ghibli vehicles nationwide, the average asking price was $61,818 while the average used price was just $55,779. Among 13 certified Levante SUVs, the average asking price was $68,350 while the average used price was $54,945.

So among Maserati’s most popular models, the average CPO price was nearly $10,000 higher than the average used price, representing a difference of over 18%.

That’s quite an expensive markup, considering all that you’re really getting is an inspection plus one extra year of warranty and roadside assistance. For context, you can order your own pre-purchase inspection of a used Maserati for around $200, and a AAA membership providing roadside assistance is just $52 per year.

Plus, Maserati will sell you an extended warranty for far less than $10,000 per year of coverage. So unless you can negotiate around $7,000 off the price of a CPO Maserati (which is certainly possible; see step eight), going with a pre-purchase inspection and a separate extended warranty might be a better bet.

Do you need an extended warranty for your Maserati?

In our full breakdown of Maserati's extended warranty, we found that plans cost around $2,100 to $2,500 per year of additional bumper-to-bumper coverage beyond the factory warranty period.

That’s more than twice the average cost of an extended auto warranty (about $1,000), but it may still be worth it given the high costs of repairing a Maserati.

Even if you never end up using it, it could be worth it for the peace of mind alone as you enjoy a grand tour in your affordable Italian exotic car.

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