Discussion
Hi everyone,
New to pistonheads and new to TVRs. I was into Alfas up till now... (not that I stopped loving them).
I am on the lookout for a Griffith these days. Hopefully pretty soon I will own one!
I drove a friends Chimaera 500 and I was blown away!
By the way there are a few cheap Griffs on ebay... Thoughts anyone?
Regards!
New to pistonheads and new to TVRs. I was into Alfas up till now... (not that I stopped loving them).
I am on the lookout for a Griffith these days. Hopefully pretty soon I will own one!
I drove a friends Chimaera 500 and I was blown away!
By the way there are a few cheap Griffs on ebay... Thoughts anyone?
Regards!
Hi Chris
Welcome aboard - excellent choice of motor, the Griffith is a wonderfull tool!
Two things you need to keep a really close eye one wherever you decide to buy a car - condition & history.
Main dealer or recognised independant for your service history is preferred, & get under the car & check for rust if you can.
Drive a few if possible, they are all quite different.
Get it inspected - theres a couple of experts out there who are very good & not expensive.
Dont worry too much about mileage - when I was looking for mine I wanted low mileage but my car now has over 80k on the clock & drives beautifully because its been well looked after & maintained. Lower mileage cars are often more trouble than the well used examples!
Get to a meet or two & talk to the owners, you'll get a far more level headed idea of what its like to own one of these cars by talking to owners rather than some muppets who knew a bloke down the pub who aunties budgie once owned one
I see youre London based. where abouts? (& if you dont mind me asking, whats your budget?)
Drop me a line via my profile if I can help
Nick
SE London & NW Kent TVRCC
Welcome aboard - excellent choice of motor, the Griffith is a wonderfull tool!
Two things you need to keep a really close eye one wherever you decide to buy a car - condition & history.
Main dealer or recognised independant for your service history is preferred, & get under the car & check for rust if you can.
Drive a few if possible, they are all quite different.
Get it inspected - theres a couple of experts out there who are very good & not expensive.
Dont worry too much about mileage - when I was looking for mine I wanted low mileage but my car now has over 80k on the clock & drives beautifully because its been well looked after & maintained. Lower mileage cars are often more trouble than the well used examples!
Get to a meet or two & talk to the owners, you'll get a far more level headed idea of what its like to own one of these cars by talking to owners rather than some muppets who knew a bloke down the pub who aunties budgie once owned one
I see youre London based. where abouts? (& if you dont mind me asking, whats your budget?)
Drop me a line via my profile if I can help
Nick
SE London & NW Kent TVRCC
Hi Chris and welcome to PH and the world of Griffiths
The Griff is a great car, you'll have a permanant grin on your face when you drive it. If you get a good one you won't look back.
IMHO there aren't any cheap Griffs about, whether on eBay or anywhere else. You're going to pay the money for it one way or another, so you may as well look for a sensibly priced car, thats running well, than a cheap car that needs (usually far more) money spent to make it run well.
I'm not saying go out and buy the most expensive Griff you can find, just get a feel for the prices on PH or the TVRCC and realise what you can get for the money you're willing to spend. I've always found that if a car is being sold at a price that appears very cheap compared to similar examples, there is always a reason.
Whatever you do, don't fall for the trick of the owner not appearing to know what he's got and just not knowing the value of it. Mark my words, he knows exactly what he's got and will be laughing all the way to the bank, while you're sitting at the side of the road waiting for the AA to get you home
I posted this a while ago about buying a Griff and I think it still holds true
Do your research before you start looking so you know what problems to look for on prospective purchases, rather than when you've got it home and realise that the chassis is rotten, or the cam's knackered, or suspension bushes, shock absorbers, gearbox, clutch, radiator etc need replacing.
Look at lots of cars (obviously within reason) then you'll know a good one when you see it.
Assess the owner, does he speak fondly of the car? Is he a true enthusiast? Is he selling the car because he has bought something "better"? (subjective in the case of a Griff ) or
a) is there something major about to go wrong ( or already gone wrong)
b) did he not realise the running costs and can't afford to keep it (may have skimped on maintenance)
Has the owner kept records of all the work done. I never mind if the owner seems a competant mechanic and has done some of the work himself, as long as he has kept all the bills for the parts.
A service once a year from a main dealer, or independant specialist, goes a long way to showing that the owner has at least tried to keep the car maintained.
I always test drive a car last when looking to buy. A careful inspection can tell you so much more about a car, than an adrenalin fueled blast up the road.
Only when I'm satisfied that the car "could" be worth buying will I suggest to the seller a test drive. Usually I find that if a car passes the initial inspection there's a good chance that it will drive OK.
If its a dog, with parts obviously needing replacement and an uncaring owner who can't be bothered to prepare the vehicle properly for sale, its probably not going to be worth driving it anyway.
Try to view the car when its cold (no not in the winter
) so you can hear what it sound like when it first starts, and how it performs before it has warmed up.
I looked at a few before I bought mine, but the one I eventually got was head and shoulders above most of the others. Some were private, others in dealers, after a while you get a feel for whether the car is going to be any good or not.
It sometimes a good idea to look at a few "unprepared" ones in dealers, then you can see
a) the common problem areas
b) just how bad some of these cars are before they get prepared (read tarted up
) for sale.
As far as I was concerned, if the previous owner had let the car get into such a poor condition, it hadn't been cherished enough to warrant becoming mine.
There's a buyers guide here www.thegriffithpages.com/buyers-guide.html have a read so you know what to look for.
I don't know where in London you are, but I'm in SW London/Surrey You'd be welcome to come over and look at my Griff so that I could show you some of the bits to look out for
The Griff is a great car, you'll have a permanant grin on your face when you drive it. If you get a good one you won't look back.
IMHO there aren't any cheap Griffs about, whether on eBay or anywhere else. You're going to pay the money for it one way or another, so you may as well look for a sensibly priced car, thats running well, than a cheap car that needs (usually far more) money spent to make it run well.
I'm not saying go out and buy the most expensive Griff you can find, just get a feel for the prices on PH or the TVRCC and realise what you can get for the money you're willing to spend. I've always found that if a car is being sold at a price that appears very cheap compared to similar examples, there is always a reason.
Whatever you do, don't fall for the trick of the owner not appearing to know what he's got and just not knowing the value of it. Mark my words, he knows exactly what he's got and will be laughing all the way to the bank, while you're sitting at the side of the road waiting for the AA to get you home
I posted this a while ago about buying a Griff and I think it still holds true
Do your research before you start looking so you know what problems to look for on prospective purchases, rather than when you've got it home and realise that the chassis is rotten, or the cam's knackered, or suspension bushes, shock absorbers, gearbox, clutch, radiator etc need replacing.
Look at lots of cars (obviously within reason) then you'll know a good one when you see it.
Assess the owner, does he speak fondly of the car? Is he a true enthusiast? Is he selling the car because he has bought something "better"? (subjective in the case of a Griff ) or
a) is there something major about to go wrong ( or already gone wrong)
b) did he not realise the running costs and can't afford to keep it (may have skimped on maintenance)
Has the owner kept records of all the work done. I never mind if the owner seems a competant mechanic and has done some of the work himself, as long as he has kept all the bills for the parts.
A service once a year from a main dealer, or independant specialist, goes a long way to showing that the owner has at least tried to keep the car maintained.
I always test drive a car last when looking to buy. A careful inspection can tell you so much more about a car, than an adrenalin fueled blast up the road.
Only when I'm satisfied that the car "could" be worth buying will I suggest to the seller a test drive. Usually I find that if a car passes the initial inspection there's a good chance that it will drive OK.
If its a dog, with parts obviously needing replacement and an uncaring owner who can't be bothered to prepare the vehicle properly for sale, its probably not going to be worth driving it anyway.
Try to view the car when its cold (no not in the winter
) so you can hear what it sound like when it first starts, and how it performs before it has warmed up. I looked at a few before I bought mine, but the one I eventually got was head and shoulders above most of the others. Some were private, others in dealers, after a while you get a feel for whether the car is going to be any good or not.
It sometimes a good idea to look at a few "unprepared" ones in dealers, then you can see
a) the common problem areas
b) just how bad some of these cars are before they get prepared (read tarted up
) for sale. As far as I was concerned, if the previous owner had let the car get into such a poor condition, it hadn't been cherished enough to warrant becoming mine.
There's a buyers guide here www.thegriffithpages.com/buyers-guide.html have a read so you know what to look for.
I don't know where in London you are, but I'm in SW London/Surrey You'd be welcome to come over and look at my Griff so that I could show you some of the bits to look out for
Having bought both, buying a Griff is different to buying a Chim. Although they are essentially the same car underneath there are a lot more Chimaeras around so you can afford to be choosy. With Griff's its advantagous to know whats cheap to repair and whats expensive, in other words don't turn down a car which has some obvious faults that are cheap to repair, but everything else is OK, it may be a long while before another decent one turns up
I have just bought a Griff (after a long search) which in first glance didn't seem that great, but the history was perfect (£7500 on main dealer servicing alone! in 13500 miles), it was low mileage, perfect leather, hood good, the chassis and wishbones near as new, good colour inside and out, electrics all working etc
The list of faults read like this, two bad fag burns on the interior trim (odd as the car had the non smoking option), bad scratch on the leading edge of the nose cone, CD Changer jammed. £60 fixed the trim (www.trim-tech.co.uk) £150 for the nose cone (Chips Away) and a mighty £25 for a new CD Changer from ebay = one mint low mileage Griff with perfect history in a great colour
I have just bought a Griff (after a long search) which in first glance didn't seem that great, but the history was perfect (£7500 on main dealer servicing alone! in 13500 miles), it was low mileage, perfect leather, hood good, the chassis and wishbones near as new, good colour inside and out, electrics all working etc
The list of faults read like this, two bad fag burns on the interior trim (odd as the car had the non smoking option), bad scratch on the leading edge of the nose cone, CD Changer jammed. £60 fixed the trim (www.trim-tech.co.uk) £150 for the nose cone (Chips Away) and a mighty £25 for a new CD Changer from ebay = one mint low mileage Griff with perfect history in a great colour
Come along to the Growl (see threads at the top of the forum for details) as there will be at least 150 Griffs there over the weekend. This will give you a great idea on internal/exterior colour combos and the chance to speak with the owners to glean some real knowledge of what to look for.
FFG
FFG
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