My 2007 V8 Vantage’s Reliability
DISCLAIMER
The information provided here is for general guidance purposes only. It is a combination of manufacturer guidance, first- and second-hand experience, and personal opinion. It may me inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated.
The idea for this article came about while my car was undergoing a major overhaul at the beginning of 2022. My mechanic and I were both impressed by how well the car had held up despite its age (about 15 years old), mileage (nearly 100,000 miles), and usage (driven through almost every environment there is in the USA plus a bunch of track days). I ended up making a video discussing it, and then wrote this article further discuss those issues and add any that happen since I filmed it.
For information about my car’s modifications, check out my Build Page for it.
I’ve grouped the issues into loose groups that generally follow how related tasks are organized in my DIY Guides index. I honestly didn’t think about this until after I’d already made the video about this topic, so…. oh well. Use the links below to quickly navigate the sections.
Jump to Section
Overview
This Article is about the reliability of my grey 2007 Aston Martin V8 Vantage. When I made the video below, my car was about 15 years old and had nearly 100,000 miles on it. Just to be clear, I’ve had plenty of issues with my car that were the result of damage and those aren’t going to be discussed here.
Most of the problems I’ve had with this car have been nothing more than a nuisance and none have ever made me worry about going on long road trips or doing track days. The only thing that could have been considered serious was when one of my shifter cables popped loose and my transmission was stuck in neutral. I was able to fix the problem on the spot, but it could have been a difficult experience if I hadn’t been able to do that. I mention this down below in the Transmission section and I go into more detail in my Article about it.
There are plenty of reliability issues that I don’t mention in this Article because I didn’t experience them with this car. They’ll be discussed elsewhere on Redpants.
Body and Lighting
Tail Light Condensation
Tail light condensation is one of the most common issues faced by Gaydon-era Aston Martins, and my car has dealt with it as well. The original red tail lights never got condensation - I replaced them with clear lights before it ever happened. They were fairly well used by the time I switched them out, though, so they seemed to be fairly reliable. Repairing the tail lights before the condensation permanently ruins them isn’t difficult and I’ve had to do it with both of the clear tail lights on my car.
Fuel Filler Lid
My fuel filler lid stopped working as well as it was supposed to, but it was easily fixed by spraying lubricant into the release solenoid. Some can be more difficult to fix, though - Aston Martin have multiple Service Bulletins addressing them with solutions ranging from adding bump stops or spacers to adjusting the hinge alignment. I made a video showing how I fixed the problem on my grey car (although the video shows it on my red one). My red car also had fuel filler lid issues and what I showed in that video did help, but it required more extensive repairs to fix permanently.
The issues I’ve had with both my V8 Vantages, which are coupes, are different than the fuel filler lid strut wearing out, which is an issue for convertibles.
Windshield Washer Fluid Reservoir
A crack in the windshield washer fluid reservoir can prevent it from holding much fluid. If the crack is low enough on the reservoir, it won’t be able to hold much at all and you can end up getting a persistent warning telling you to top it off. A crack in the reservoir can be easy to find as it might be stained by the washer fluid (see the picture below), but fixing it may not be so simple. Repairs generally don’t hold up over time and replacement of the reservoir is the only way to make sure it no longer leaks… so long as the replacement doesn’t end up cracked as well.
The reservoirs vary depending on which model car you have and whether or not the car has headlight washers, so make sure you check which one you need before ordering.
Loose Window Retention Bolt
It’s possible for the retention bolts that hold the door windows secured to their tracks to loosen, at which point the window can move freely on its own. You’ll notice this when the window doesn’t move smoothly and evenly, particularly when lowering the window. Fixing the issue is fairly easy - just remove the door panel and put the bolt back in place. If you don’t see the bolt where it should be, using an extendable magnet may help you find the bolt in the bottom “tray” of the door.
Electronics and Infotainment
Navigation Screen Gears
The first issue I ever had with my V8 Vantage was the navigation screen gears. My DIY Guide for replacing the gears has been very popular since I wrote it, but the problem first occurred with my car before I was comfortable tearing into it, so the repair was done by a dealership.
The navigation screen gears have been a common enough issue that Aston Martin have a repair kit for them, often referred to as the updated navigation screen gears.
Bluetooth Switcher Kit
Early cars with the stand-alone Bluetooth switcher could sometimes experience an issue wherein the speakers on one side of the car would cut out. The well-known way of “checking” if the speakers cut out due to the Bluetooth switcher is to stomp on the passenger side footrest panel.
Note: Don’t stop the shit out of your floorboard. You’re just rattling thee Bluetooth switcher, not punching a Flintstones foot hole into your car.
It’s really easy to replace the Bluetooth switcher but I highly recommend leaving the old one in place as removing it takes far more work than just plugging in the new one and securing it in place on top of the old one.
Ambient Air Temperature Sensor
The ambient air temperature sensor sits in the nose of the car, just behind the front grille. If it goes bad - and it can go bad - the signal it sends will be inaccurate and the car will display the wrong temperature. The wrong temperature being shown is an inconvenience, but it can also cause a serious issue within the car itself. There’s a failsafe that will prevent the battery from being charged if the car thinks the outside temperature is too extreme. Mine wasn’t that bad, though. It was “only” off by around 30F or so.
The sensor itself if pretty inexpensive, and replacing it is fairly easy.
Broken Battery Ground Stud
I’ll be honest, I have no idea how this one happened. My car started acting up when I tried turning it on - sometimes it would have absolutely zero power, like the car battery wasn’t even connected. Turns out, sometimes it wasn’t. Somehow the chassis stud where the negative battery cable grounds had broken completely off. That meant the car battery was grounded to a stud that was attached to nothing. Sometimes the ground cable would be resting in a position where it was touching the chassis, at which point the ground was completed and the car would start. Sometimes the cable wasn’t resting on anything so the ground wasn’t completed, and the battery was essentially disconnected. The solution was easy enough as I only had to ground the cable to a different chassis stud.
Engine, Intake, and Exhaust
Timing Cover Gasket
The timing cover gasket is one of the most costly issues we V8 Vantage owners might face, but it’s also one of the least serious. The amount of oil that leaks from the gasket, if any at all, is very small. The engine consumes more oil just running normally than will leak from the timing cover gasket. It’s possible to slow the leak by adding sealant to a few key spots, but that just adds a mess to your engine and doesn’t always stop the leak. The best way to fix the problem is to replace the gaskets with an updated version. They’re not too expensive, but the labor is.
A lot of people say that replacing the gaskets means a permanent fix… but that’s not true. On my grey V8 Vantage, for example, the gaskets were replaced under warranty while the original owner still had the car. Eight years and 50,000 miles later, I noticed the problem had returned.
Granted, my engine has been stressed more than most given the, um, spirited driving I often do and the various track days. But this does prove that replacing the timing cover gasket isn’t a guaranteed permanent fix.
Air Oil Separator O-Ring
This actually happened years before I made my Reliability Report video, but it was such a small thing and I had completely forgotten about it when compiling my notes for the video. The issue with the factory air-oil separator (at least as far as this is concerned) is that it’s only secured by a single bolt, which means that it doesn’t have even pressure keeping it in place. Vibrations from the engine can basically wiggle the O-ring loose enough for oil to escape. The amount of oil that gets through is very small but it builds up on the return hose over time. If you notice there’s a layer of oil and grime coating the return hose that comes from the bottom of the factory air-oil separator, it’s coming from the O-ring.
Replacing the O-ring with a new one every few years may reduce the chance of it happening, but it’s ultimately a design flaw so don’t be surprised if it reoccurs.
Fun fact: My DIY Guide for this job might very well have been the first-ever that I wrote for an Aston Martin. I’d originally done it as a post on a forum long before starting Redpants.
Fuel Vapor Recirculation Hose
A less-than-lovely thing would happen once in a while wherein my engine would stall while I was coasting in neutral. It can be a scary thing when you lose your engine, power steering, and power brakes in traffic, so I took my car to the local dealership. The Master Technician quickly found the issue: the fuel vapor recirculation hose in my fuel tank had broken and it may have been sucking up fuel and stalling the engine. Fixing the problem only required removing the broken hose and and pulling over the remnant hose. The original hose is long enough that it reaches without needing to be replaced, and the now-shorter length actually helps prevent the problem from happening again..
Fuel Sender Unit
One day I was casually driving along with a group of friends to an event and my fuel gauge suddenly dropped to empty. I was worried about some catastrophic loss of fuel on the road but it ended up just being the fuel sender unit in my gas tank. My local Master Technician was able to quickly fix the problem - it didn’t require any new parts and hasn’t been an issue since.
The issue can manifest in a couple ways. Either by having a different reading than accurate, or by holding place until the fuel level drops a certain amount and the gauge quickly jumps to that new position. The problem can also be for a various range of the gauge as well. It could affect a small portion of the gauge, or nearly the entire thing like what happened to me.
Fuel Pressure Loss
One of the more annoying problems I’ve had was when my fuel system wasn’t able to build or hold fuel pressure. It resulted in my engine struggling to turn over at startup and a brief bit of rough idle waiting for pressure to build. I replaced my spark plugs and coil packs, since those were overdue anyway, my battery, and even my starter. Turns out the issue was a faulty valve in the fuel tank that was allowing pressure to bleed off. I ended up getting a new valve from a salvaged fuel system and swapping over the valve using a dull knife, which was neither easy or fun. A Master Technician buddy of mine told me he sees fuel systems in these cars start to have problems after around 100,000 miles, so I went ahead and replaced the fuel pump and fuel filter (and that damn valve) with completely new parts as my car was near that point anyway during my major overhaul in early 2022.
Exhaust Hardware
I wouldn’t normally classify corroded exhaust hardware as a reliability issue but I’m including it anyway because it can be an issue when modifying the exhaust system or doing certain maintenance items like changing the clutch. I needed to pull my entire exhaust system during a major project and found a bunch of corroded stuff that I ended up replacing, like the exhaust clamps (a couple had to be cut to be removed), the muffler spring bolts (two of which broke), and a couple of bushings (so worn out that they were useless).
It’s worth checking the various clamps, fasteners, and bushings to see if they’ll need to be replaced before you do any jobs that require they be removed.
Interior
Headliner
One of the quickest ways to make a car seem like a “beater” is to have a sagging headliner. While I do beat on my V8 Vantage quite a bit, I don’t consider it to be an actual beater, but that’s how it feels now. My headliner dropped down quite literally on top of my head while I was driving along one day. I do have my windows cracked or rolled all the way down the vast majority of the time I drive and I’d imagine that as well as living in Florida’s hot climate for a while did contribute to it coming loose from the roof.
Transmission
Loose Shifter Cables
Most likely my most epic save was nearly the premature end of a weekend rally and the beginning of a costly ordeal. Long story short, I shifted too hard and it popped one of my shifter cables loose. I was unable to select a gear and my transmission was stuck in neutral. I had a tow truck lift the front of my car so I could get underneath the car and reconnect the cable, and then I was on my way.
I’m not the only person that has dealt with this and Aston Martin themselves have a Service Bulletin showing how to use safety wire to secure the shifter cable and bell crank lever the same way I had done with zip-ties, and another Service Bulletin showing how to use zip-ties to secure another part of the shifter cables to a mounting bracket. Race teams that use manual transmission cars - an incredibly rare thing - do the safety wire and zip-tie reinforcements by default to prevent losing the shift cables during races.
Stiff Shifting
This isn’t necessarily a reliability issue but it’s worth mentioning since it does have a Service Bulletin, new parts to fix the problem, and plagues many owners. There are two fixes for stiff shifting when the transmission is cold:
1) Change out the bell crank lever to the updated part, and
2) Use a different gear oil.
Doing just one or the other will help, but doing both adds the benefits to each and helps the most. The bell crank lever is a bit of a task, though, so if you have to do that one it might be worth waiting until you need to do something else like replace your clutch to make the labor cost of the job easier to swallow.
Changing the gear oil is very easy so this is an “obvious” solution. Aston Martin switched from the original Shell Transaxle gear oil to Castrol BOT270A. It provides the smoothest shifting but not as much protection as others. So, if you plan to drive your car really aggressively or do track days, I’d suggest a gear oil that provides better protection like Motul Gear 300. I use the Motul fluid in my car and it shifts very smoothly even in the cold, so it’s just the right spot for me when it comes to getting both protection and smooth shifting.
CV boot
Another thing that actually happened years before I made my Reliability Report video, but I completely forgot to mention it during filming. I had a tell-tale clicking sound coming from my suspension and it changed speed as the car speed changed. One of the CV boots had torn - my passenger rear one, if I remember correctly - and that allowed all the grease to escape. My mechanic checked his shelves to see what he had that was similar in case he could just swap it out and sure enough he found something. The same part was used on a Ferrari F355. Lucky thing, too, because Aston Martin don’t sell the part on its own and I’d have had to buy an entirely new half shaft just to get a new CV boot.
He replaced my torn CV boot with the one he had set aside for a F355, repacked it with grease, and everything was completely fine after that. I haven’t had a single issue with it since, and none of the other CV boots have torn.
Given that this happened early on and it was the only one that had an issue (and I can’t recall hearing about the same issue from anyone else), I can’t help but wonder if it was either a defective boot or if the boot was actually damaged by road debris, an errant mechanic’s tool, or something else. But that’s just speculation so I’ll keep it listed as a reliability incident.