Buyer Beware - 36 Modena F1, ZFFYU51A930130439

The engine start button and the home-made right shift paddle would have my alert on high.. someone wanted a Challenge badly in the past.

 

That car looks very familiar, minus the fact that it's not a real CS...

 

Looks like the Autosource Dallas ad now has the car as being "sold".

 

Looks like an utter bucket, still sad to see a faded Ferrari with those tacky price numbers on the windscreen

 

Its a bit of an over exaggeration to describe it as an utter bucket. The dealer is being difficult but until a full inspection has actually been completed its impossible to say whether its a bucket or not. Ofcourse there are better examples around.

Having said all of this the bodykit looks awful though, why oh why did the original owner except that terrible color mismatch from the paintshop? And the start button looks quite tacky too. A proper enzo/cs start button in a good place would have looked more factory to go with the rest of the interior.

This is a classic case of mods 'gone wrong' devaluing the car. Not however something very hard to put right and the car could still make someone very happy if it falls into the right hands in the future...

 

Very interesting. This was one of the Ferraris I was looking to purchase back in October 2012. I actually saved the original ebay listing for it, which had a fairly detailed description of the mods. If i recall correctly I want to say it sold for mid 70s and had 19k miles back then...
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Ebay racing push start button, not matching paint, body kit?, one homemade paddle, rough interior...........

 

Agreed, its not perfect but all things are relatively easy and a reasonable cost to put right, assuming it goes to the right buyer and gets rectified it could make someone very happy.

I'd be more worried if it had badly repaired accident damage, whining gearbox and bad cylinder compression test results, coolant in the gearbox oil, etc. An inspection can find all of these issues. These can be big money to put right!

 

They are asking 62.5k now according to the trade in for the GTR they basically want to recoup their money
2003 Ferrari 360 Modena , $62,500 - Cars.com
But not allowing a PPI is basically buying at an auction, how much would be a good price to get this car knowing the little history at the beginning of this thread and the unknown problems? 50k maybe?

 

Hmm. I nearly bought this car today (got approved on it via the dealer) but as I am in Texas, I would have to have it trucked here. The information above is both somewhat damning and also somewhat positive, as it provides more of a history (via the saved Ebay auction PDF that was posted) than anything the dealer currently has available. I knew those sideskirts looked suspect though and I am not even an F expert yet. The Ebay listing also explains the lowered stance of the car.

This is a total gamble, this car could turn out to need nothing more than cosmetic work, or whoever bought it from the Ebay guy could have totally destroyed the mechanicals, assuming everything was as good as that guy said at the time. I'm not opposed to a gamble at times as this isn't my primary vehicles, but the also equally cheap 2008 997 Turbo from a Toyota dealer on the other end of the country seems a better buy as they are much more robust, less to maintain than this thing and not to mention easier to insure.

Another case where internet forums prove an invaluable assistance.

 

Porsche is Porsche, Ferrari is nothing like it AT ALL.
I also hear horror stories about the Turbo's. Have a look at Rennlist.
That's another thread though.

Why would anyone buy a car worth that sort of money without being able to check it out at a place that suits? That's a sign if ever there were one.

I hope these dealers selling this car read these threads.

 

Like you, I jumped in, (car smart but) less than fully educated on the F355. Mind you, I am pretty happy with my car in general, but I made some expensive rookie mistakes not knowing some of the shady things I later found (e.g. the check engine light had been removed) and I still have some head work awaiting the car to restore everything back to the way it should be... but that will wait until I get to California and can get the heads worked on by people I can trust. I bought a car with very limited history, along the way, I have found some shady stuff that just screamed lack of proper maintenance.

Thankfully, I have been chipping away at the little things one by one, but I swear that the previous owners should have given her more love. Assume the worst, and hope for the best, I hope that you end up with a great driver... perfection and concours cars are great, but so are cars you can drive every day.

Mark

 

I'm sure there are MANY of us out there who have started ownership that way. I wish it had a more extensive history (but then I assume it would have sold by now), because I really didn't WANT to truck it home to Texas. I wanted to drive it like every other high end car I've bought long distance. But with so many unknowns, that just wouldn't be prudent. This thing could actually turn out to be a decent gamble, but as a Ferrari rookie I might be better off getting the Turbo for now and starting my Ferrari ownership with either a local car I can go properly look at and drive beforehand if I'm going to get one with such limited history, or a car with better history if it's going to be far away on the next round. I'm still half considering it, but probably best to avoid for now.

I used to be such a Lambo hater before because of the typical image associated with them versus the rich history and camaraderie of Ferrari owners. But after seeing how simple the drivetrains are on Gallardos of a similar era (basically a lot of carry over Audi stuff) I do admit I was very turned on to those, too (one I looked at actually had all of its services at the Audi dealer). But they stay in a higher price bracket than this for one that is anywhere near reasonable condition.

I do have to say the dealer has been really nice. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't believe they are being malicious with the whole PPI thing. Based on the title of this thread when I typed the VIN into Google, I was fully expecting to find out this car had been in a bad wreck, severely abused by someone or had a major mechanical problem someone had found out about. Who knows WHAT their fear is, but I don't think it's to hide things. I bet now that they have me on the hook with financing, they'd probably take the car and PPI it if I paid them to do so before hand. The cosmetics don't really bother me.

 

So after looking at the Autosource Dallas ad, I'm actually a little more confident about this than I was before. The car has only done some 400 miles (perhaps in the Ferrari world this may as well be 4000 for all I know) since it was listed in that Autosource ad, and they claimed the clutch had been done in the last 100 miles. That's kind of a big deal, and leaves to question, if true, how long ago the belt service was done. There's a lot of issue being taken here with the "mods" someone did to the cosmetics of this car, but looking back through the Autosource listing and the old Ebay listings this stuff seems documented. A poor choice, but hardly worth throwing away what could be a decent car over.

But the post I quoted above has me very confused. It sounds like there is more information that can't be revealed that would be against the car and the reasons why it was traded in so quickly after purchasing at Autosource? Whatever that info is might place a very different spin on things.

 

Same car $72,950 @ Texas Import Sales in Dallas Tx.

26,870 miles

TEXAS IMPORT SALES

I can't tell if it still has this right shifter that doesn't match.

 

This 360 is still with Texas Import Sales.
Price has dropped to $69,950.

The attached picture from their ad still shows mismatched paddles. You can just make them out in this picture.

But where is the start button now? It appears missing from the console...
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Looks like they switched a diff console on it , likely after reading this thread maybe lol. Or due to them knowing prospective buyers won't like it. Also it has aftermarket seat harnesses? Just noticed them in the pic. The seats don't have holes for a harness. They would simply slide off your shoulders.