| Author |
Message |
Mitch Alsup (Mitch_alsup)
Junior Member
Username: Mitch_alsup
Post Number: 135
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 04, 2002 - 11:26 am: | |
If you visit the other car nut boards, you will find that the Mustangs, Camaros, Firechickens, Vette and Viper (drag racing) guys (and occasional street racers) are always replacing clutches. But at $500 per trip, its a lot easier to swallow than at $2000. Drag racing Vette owners are in a continuous search for a clutch that will hold any power adders while drag racing. A typical thread starts out like: "I and having a little trouble with my clutch (blah-blah) and only have 3000 (or 5000) miles on this car; the dealer won't warentee the clutch; What should I do?". There are a host of aftermarket clutches that appear to be a little better, but not enough. Yet other owners of similar cars get 80,000+ miles from their clutches.
Hmmmmmmm: Some get 80,000 miles on a clutch, some only get 5,000 miles: Hmmmmmmm: must be some difference in USE of the car. Wonder what it might be?
I am NOT saying that Ferrari clutches are {poor, overly expensive, fragile, or a maintenance headache}. I am saying that with what we know about Ferrari clutches (and clutches in high performance cars in general), that a careful driver can go a long way to avoid spending excessive amounts of money on clutches. |
Ernesto (T88power)
Member
Username: T88power
Post Number: 637
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 8:17 pm: | |
2000 360 F1 7,500 miles - original clutch, still strong as new. no probs.
All my visits at the dealer seem to indicate that manual 360's get their clutches changed more often. Mechanics explained that driver error (ie riding the clutch, missed shifts, and other actions) wear out the clutch much faster. The f1 never misses a shift or rides the clutch (at least not on mine), thereby prolonging clutch life.
Ernesto |
john (Johnwto)
New member
Username: Johnwto
Post Number: 13
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 7:47 pm: | |
MITCH
if a $150,000+ sports car, that is supposed to be the 'ultimate', is NOT designed to go fast from a standstill then whats it designed to do? is it any wonder that ferrari reliabilty has such a bad reputation?
I was at mosport last week on a ferrari day and prior to the lapping sessions we were doing slaloms and other driving skill exercises. 5 of the guys with F1's had their alarms going off and one of the guys car wouldn't go into gear. thats pretty pathetic. how can you blame that on driving style?
my porsche turbo with 450 hp gets beats up way more than my 360 and i have never had a clutch problem yet (15,000 miles vs 6000 miles)
while i agree, driving style effects clutch wear the 355/360's are having too many problems to be considered normal wear and tear. |
Mitch Alsup (Mitch_alsup)
Junior Member
Username: Mitch_alsup
Post Number: 133
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 1:55 pm: | |
There is an old story about Jim(mie) Clark and his days with the Lotus F1 team. Jimmie was winning races and had generally pretty good reliability with the (early) Lotus cars, while his team mate was routinely wearing the car out 10-15 laps before the end of the race. In fact, Jimmies' car could finish the race with 30% of the tires left, even when he was setting the fastest time of the day in the car. Jimmies' engines needed the lesser amount of rebuilding, he almost never broke a gear box, half shaft, or lost a clutch. [For those who don't remember, Jimmie is credited with developing the trailing brake driving style. In this style, most braking was done in a straight line, then as the car was gently swung into the turn, the brakes are reduced to 15% power scrubbing off speed as the radius of the arc is reduced. near the apex, the brakes are removed and throttle is added. Modern analysis of this (see physics of racing) shows that each turn taken with trail braking may gain 3-4 feet over an equivalent opponent without trail braking.]
This goes to show that drivers style has a lot to do with longevity of various components in the car.
With a lot of cars high HP cars {Mustang, Corvette, Camaro, Firechicken}; the cost to replace a clutch is not so great as one would change his driving style to suit the car. These cars are designed for drag racing. And drag racing is often won or lost in the first 60 feet. It is a lot easier to modulate the power delivery of a big TQ engine with the clutch than with a throttle. Since clutches are cheap, a lot of clutches are worn out winning puny little drag races.
This is not the case with Ferrari; they are not designed for drag racing, nor are clutches cheap to replace. As many of us live a considerable distance fron a dealer, so getting a car serviced may extract a day going and another day comming back to deliver and retrieve the car. This in itself warrents learning to drive in such a manner as to not wear parts out faster than necessary. |
michael shing (Michael_360)
New member
Username: Michael_360
Post Number: 12
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 10:33 am: | |
I put over 40k miles on my 95 355 before the
clutch started to slip , so far 12k on the 360 |
Manu Sachdeva (Manu)
Member
Username: Manu
Post Number: 409
Registered: 2-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 5:15 am: | |
My cousins F355 F1 - period of ownership - 9 months - No mileage figure - new clutch required 2 months into ownership.
Under 2000 miles and 6 months later ANOTHER new clutch required - massive slipping in 5th and 6th...(very weird). |
Joe Sevack (Joe_in_hk)
New member
Username: Joe_in_hk
Post Number: 4
Registered: 9-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 3:19 am: | |
1998 355 F1. Purchased from dealer w/ 29,000 km (approx 18k miles). One week later the clutch overheating/wear buzzer/beeper starts sounding here and there, not terribly often but not necessarily in traffic on steep grades either. Dealer diagnosed clutch wear of approx 80% and replaced clutch for free, no fuss. I love the way this car drives, but I think it is clear that the F1 system does not release the clutch as quickly or cleanly when starting off as an experienced driver of a manual would--I sometimes feel like yelling at the car to "just let the f-ing thing out already"! I cannot avoid driving in traffic in Hong Kong (you either drive in traffic here or you do not drive at all) and steep hills are often part of the equation, but some driving precautions/techniques are surely helpful (at least I'm hoping they are). For example, if I'm stuck in traffic going up a hill, I'll wait until there is a plenty of daylight ahead of me before moving forward at all rather than inching forward everytime the car in front of me moves a bit--pisses-off and confuses people behind me somewhat, but too bad, the fewer times I start off in that situation the better. I've also found (as I'm sure all other FI owners have) that the clutch slips on start-off much more when the engine/trans is cold, so whenever I can I let it warm up well before I drive it. All that said, we'll see how long this clutch lasts (I've only done about 2,000 km in the car so far). Also, to be fair, I should really give up the sport-mode racing starts, but its so addictive (not to mention how fun it is scaring the hell out of unsuspecting passengers). I love how the Ferrari manual warns something like "significant skidding of the drive wheels may occur"--is that Italian understaement or did something get lost in the translation? |
john (Johnwto)
New member
Username: Johnwto
Post Number: 11
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, August 31, 2002 - 11:01 am: | |
DOODY
wild is right. they wouldn't even cover it under warranty. i needed a new clutch plate and something else, maybe pressure plate?
total cost- $5000
explanation- i guess you drive your car hard
its an F1, figure that out!!
NICK
you know you need a new clutch sleeve when the clutch pedal does not come back to the original resting position after a shift. It feels like the hydraulics are gone and the clutch pedal just kind of sits in the bottom position until you 'pump' the clutch. mine was under warranty but i guess it would be well over $5000, it was a one week job and they had to pull the transmission out
FRANK
a clutch sleeve has absolutely nothing to do with driving style. it is a design flaw on the 2000 models which was fixed for the 2001 model year. my 2000 parts were replaced with the 2001 assembly i have not had a problem since. and how does driving style effect cluch wear on an F1?
|
Hans E. Hansen (4re_gt4)
Junior Member
Username: 4re_gt4
Post Number: 113
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, August 31, 2002 - 12:21 am: | |
After comments about driver technique, I started a new thread. See the one on 'double clutching', if you're interested. |
David Burch (Merlyn)
New member
Username: Merlyn
Post Number: 9
Registered: 8-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 8:16 pm: | |
99 355F1 13,000 miles, 5 track events, occasional agressive driving, rarely in sport mode, no problems so far. |
J.D. Smythe (Jeff)
New member
Username: Jeff
Post Number: 48
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 7:43 pm: | |
I hope I can add some clarity to this thread. I posted the original thread (360 F1 cars only). The dealer told me there was nothing wrong with the clutches on 355's, either the F1 or 6 speed. Because of this, they knew the F1 was the culrpit casuing problems on the 360, and yes the 6 speed clutches are problematic too.
But they real problem is that FNA refuses to own up to the problem and warranty the fix. And to compound the issue, FNA is tying the dealers hands because FNA won't authorize any work by the dealer to trouble shoot the problem. Everytime the dealer needs to replace "a" part they need to get authorization from FNA. FNA doesn't give the authorization until the dealer tries other fixes (fixes that don't require replacing expensive parts, i.e try tweaking this then that first). It's a never ending circle.This is also one reason why our cars are in the shop for a long time.It's a long drawn out process for the dealer to get authoriztion when the problem is not so easy to diagnose. This all has to do with the bottom line $$$$$$ for FNA. These clutch problems won't get fixed until FNA gives a dealer the go ahead to properly look into the problem |
Nick Berry (Nickb)
New member
Username: Nickb
Post Number: 4
Registered: 8-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 6:56 pm: | |
How do you know when a clutch needs a clutch sleeve? What is the cost if not under warranty? |
Martin (Miami348ts)
Advanced Member
Username: Miami348ts
Post Number: 2700
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 3:38 pm: | |
1998 F355 6 speed 8000 Miles clutch slipping. Ft. Lauderdael, a friend of mine, and he knows how to drive a car with a clutch.
My 348 25,000 Miles new clutch then speed shifted on the last track event and had to re-surface the clutch at 38,000 Miles again.
hard data! |
Hans E. Hansen (4re_gt4)
Junior Member
Username: 4re_gt4
Post Number: 106
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 3:31 pm: | |
I wonder if drivers are not properly 'blipping' the throttle on downshifts. Or too aggressive on take-off? Never had a worn out clutch, myself. |
Frank Parker (Parkerfe)
Intermediate Member
Username: Parkerfe
Post Number: 1283
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 12:19 pm: | |
Most of this clutch wear stuff is really caused by the driver. I know when i first got my 2000 M5 thaere was a lot of post on www.bmwm5.com about how the M5 clutches were wearing out to fast. After 47,000 miles and several track events my M5 clutch is doing fine. Also, I have put over 20k miles on each of the five Ferraris I have owned and have never had to replace a clutch on any of them. The only clutch related problem I have ever had on a Ferrari was having to replace the clutch slave cylinder on my 1986 TR. |
Scott A. B. Collins (Scott)
Junior Member
Username: Scott
Post Number: 70
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 11:29 am: | |
My 360 going in to have the clutch sleeve replaced. I assume I can have the dealer check the thickness of the clutch wear surface, and will report back.
|
Mitch Alsup (Mitch_alsup)
Junior Member
Username: Mitch_alsup
Post Number: 130
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 10:23 am: | |
My wear data: I bought a 95 F355 with 22K miles. at the 28K mile mark (and after 7 track days), the clutch slave cylinder was leaking very slightly. I had the slave cylinder repaired, but retained the current clutch. 2K miles later I'm still fine. Since this is only my second used car, and the clutch arrived in unknown condition, I can't conjecture on how long it has left.
Other data: 80K miles on a MI-16 sports sedan--clutch still fine.
75K on an X1/9--clutch still fine.
120K on a Fiat Spider--clutch still fine.
30K on a Corvette--clutch fine when traded in.
30K on a Ducati--clutch still fine.
In fact, I have never replaced a clutch on any car I have ever owned (and every car (less one, two if you count trucks) I have ever owned was manual tranny), I have a reputation of driving hard, and squezing every last ounce of performance out of my cars--yet brakes last 80K on a set of pads, never warped a rotor, never lost a tranny, and never wore out a clutch, never broke an engine, or other drive line components, and had only 1 warentee repair in my 33 years of driving. I think I see a patern developing. |
James Selevan (Jselevan)
Junior Member
Username: Jselevan
Post Number: 90
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 10:03 am: | |
I must have seen 10 F1 shifter 360s come through in Ferrari of Orange County. All were low mileage (less than 10,000). I purposely checked these as I was interested in the wear in F1 versus manual transmission.
Jim S. |
Willis Huang (Willis360)
Member
Username: Willis360
Post Number: 914
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 9:50 am: | |
We need more direct input from 355 and 360 owners. First hand information is needed to get to the bottom of this.
|
Mr. Doody (Doody)
Member
Username: Doody
Post Number: 420
Registered: 11-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 9:39 am: | |
[[[1998 355F1 clutch replaced after 1500 miles]]]
this is wild. what was the diagnosis?
doody. |
David Jones (Dave)
Member
Username: Dave
Post Number: 268
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 9:04 am: | |
On the 2 cars I know of here in town,
both are owned by doctors, and neither one is driven very hard or daily, but I'm not sure about miles... |
Willis Huang (Willis360)
Member
Username: Willis360
Post Number: 913
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 11:55 pm: | |
I'd like to know how many miles were on those cars and how the owners drive their cars. |
James Selevan (Jselevan)
Junior Member
Username: Jselevan
Post Number: 89
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 10:32 pm: | |
While enjoying the 4 weeks it took for the 30k service on my TR at Ferrari of Orange County, I witnessed a parade of 360s on various lifts everyday. Virtually all of them were in for clutches, and most were F1 paddle shifters. I asked each of the 6 mechanics working there, and their unanimous opinion was that the F1 shifter is harder on the clutch. They each felt that an experienced manual transmission driver knows how to modulate clutch release better. The F1 shifter is more consistent, but sacrifices wear for this consistency. They also felt that this opinion was supported by the significantly greater number of clutch changes on F1 shifters.
Jim S. |
john (Johnwto)
New member
Username: Johnwto
Post Number: 10
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 10:11 pm: | |
1) 1998 355F1 clutch replaced after 1500 miles
2) 2000 360 traditional six speed. Clutch sleeve replaced after 4000 miles. ferrari dealer states 'known problem on 2000 models'. F1 cars do not have a clutch sleeve |
David Jones (Dave)
Member
Username: Dave
Post Number: 262
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 7:22 pm: | |
My mistake, one is F1, the other is 6speed... |
Dave (Maranelloman)
Member
Username: Maranelloman
Post Number: 332
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 6:35 pm: | |
Excellent points, Mitch! |
Mitch Alsup (Mitch_alsup)
Junior Member
Username: Mitch_alsup
Post Number: 127
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 6:21 pm: | |
I think manual clutches (but not necessarily the slave cylinders) wear more as a function of power transmitted through them while they are in the friction zone, than the power of the car,.....
This means that a driver who can use the clutch well, can run the snot out of the car for a very long period of time (80K+ miles) before the clutch needs any attention whatsoever. On the other hand, someone who power shifts, drag races, burns rubber, and feathers power transfer with the clutch (rather than the throttle) is looking for trouble. One of the reasons Ferrari engines are given such good throttle response it that the trained user can use the (fast response) throttle as a clutch saving device where a lesser tuned engine would have to use the clutch.
Slave cylinder wear is more a function of how long the clutch remains depressed than how many times the pedal is depressed. So while you sit at a stop, the clutch pedal is NOT depressed. Also avoid holding the clutch pedal in while braking for turns,... In-Out as fast as reasonably possible. |
David Jones (Dave)
Member
Username: Dave
Post Number: 261
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 6:16 pm: | |
I'm not a 360 owner, but the two 360's that I have personal knowledge of here in town, both with the F1 have both been in the shop because of clutch problems...
One is a US car, the other is a Euro import with conversion... |
martin J weiner,M.D. (Mw360)
Member
Username: Mw360
Post Number: 539
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 6:12 pm: | |
'99 6spd euro-11,500 mi no clutch problems however car driven only on sunny Sundays and only to the sweetie shop. |
Willis Huang (Willis360)
Member
Username: Willis360
Post Number: 909
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 5:55 pm: | |
2001 360 F1. Tracked last year, driven hard on backroads minimum 3 times a week since new, used in varied traffic and weather conditions, interstate trips. 12,000 miles. Service department indicated normal wear but no clutch problem. |
Lou B (Toby91)
Junior Member
Username: Toby91
Post Number: 82
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 5:37 pm: | |
Lots and lots of hearsay on various threads on 355/360 clutch wear. Who has REAL DATA: worn or slipping clutches on what model, tranny, milage and type of driving. I'll start: 360 F1, 6000 miles, 3 track events, clutch perfect. Lets see how bad or overstated this issue really is. |