Reply To: Advice on this photo

[Graham Wood]

I have one on my 3200 (disabled it about 15 years ago as it did not impact my insurance).

Had the car 2 weeks (used daily), then went on a 2 week holiday. Came back to a totally dead battery.

Got it going, then left it for 3 days. Totally flat battery. Meter told me something was draining the battery heavily and suspected the tracker.

Called RAC (as I knew the item was an RAC tracker fitted by the first Owner on purchase – not installed by Maserati). Engineer said the unit was faulty. Should continue to draw 250-350mA for about an hour after switching the ignition off (i.e. when in ‘transmission’ mode) and then drop to about 15mA (in ‘standby’ mode). Mine was continually drawing 300mA as it was not switching to ‘standby’ mode – hence soon took the battery down. Unit left in the car but disabled. Where I learnt how easy the rear seats of a 3200 are to remove!

Sure the modern ones are far better and probably draw less standby current (technology of mine was probably around 2000).

Car went from 2004 to 2016 on the new battery fitted in 2004. Installed a new battery in 2016 just because I thought 12 years was long enough to trust a battery!

Interesting the 4200 one came with a fob, so you could disable them and also that Maserati installed them. Was it an optional extra or standard I wonder?