Was the later 355 any different to the earlier cars?

[Bund]

Was the later(99) cars any different to the earlier cars? Spiders and GTS's in the running, seen some earlier cars with similar mileage to later cars advertised for a lot less. If they are exactly the same(manual cars) the guy is happy to buy on condition and service than on age. What is the cost of a challenge grill btw?

thanks

[AndrewW-G]

The earlier cars had a different engine management system, that gives a small amount more power, other than that, the other changes are just realtively small details.

I'd suggest buying on condition and not gettting too concerned on either mileage or age, as even the newest car is now over 11 years old and they hide mileage very well

[kenyon]

Later ones had airbags.

[tomtom]

kenyon said:

Later ones had airbags.

You need to buy a very early (94/95) car to avoid getting an airbag.

[Mroad]

As mentioned above the main difference is the Engine management system used and that is how early and late are identified.
95 and earlier cars used Bosch Motronic 2.7 which used a separate ECU for each bank hence two MAF's and twin intake. No doubt this less restrictive air flow helps to take the quoted output to 380bhp.
Later cars switch to Bosch Motronic 5.2 which used a single ECU and only one MAF. The intakes combine going through the MAF then split again to the plenums. The later cars are quoted as 375bhp.

There were also different makes of ABS systems used.
Early cars (M2.7) had the Teves MkIV ABS system which ran with a separate pressure pump.
Later cars (M5.2) ran with a Bosch system.
The Teves system has a tendency to come in too soon (certainly did when I test drove one) hence they provided a button to turn the ABS off.
Bosch systems don't have the button.

There were loads of other minor changes and it means there is no real major difference between the M2.7 and M5.2 cars, what was lost in power on the later cars was gained in slightly better reliability.
Certainly the M2.7 cars are not worth any more than M5.2 cars, well not in my opinion anyway!

[DrYazz]

Bund said:

Was the later(99) cars any different to the earlier cars? Spiders and GTS's in the running, seen some earlier cars with similar mileage to later cars advertised for a lot less. If they are exactly the same(manual cars) the guy is happy to buy on condition and service than on age. What is the cost of a challenge grill btw?

thanks

Challenge rear grills don't look as good as the body coloured grill

[Bund]

thank you for all the replys, first 3 cars are 96/98/99 so all of the later variety. Are spiders the most sort after?

[Mario149]

Bund said:

thank you for all the replys, first 3 cars are 96/98/99 so all of the later variety. Are spiders the most sort after?

I believe that Spiders are supposed to be ~£2k more expensive than a like for like coupe....which I guess might mean they are a bit more sought after as people are willing to pay more.

Coupe is always gonna drive better than the Spider version of pretty much anything, so it comes down to personal choice I guess, I went for the wind-in-my-hair-sod-the-last-tenth-round-the-track option. Maintenance wise, I believe they are broadly similar - Coupe buttresses at the back require a respray every couple of years due to bubbling it seems (£300/side I think), equally, the folding roofs can fail when stuff like seat potentiometers pack up.

For pure looks, I prefer the Spider with the roof down/tonneau on as opposed to the coupe, but then I'm biased

[jdw1234]

Bund,

I hope it is OK, but I have PM'd you about a car I have for sale at Verdi.

It is in fantastic condition, competitively priced with FSH in binder to back up the mileage.

Kind regards,