How do you guys drive these things?

Carefully, with good support. Plus, it helps to really understand how everything works and maintain her religiously.

 

You know the sound a Ferrari makes at redline? That is the sound of money exploding. If it's disposable income and you enjoy it, then its all good.

 

They are cars, great cars, of course.

At least the front engined cars since the 550 are highly reliable.

I drive the 550 rather spirited at times, including trackdays. But no silly things, in particular not in public traffic.

I drive the 599 swift (German "Autobahn" ), but not at the limits, very rarely faster than 270 km/h.

With both cars no mayor problems yet.

The 550 in the meanwhile has 3 new shock actuators. Intake gaskets had to be exchanged. Two hoses failed, the clutch pressure hose and a steering servo hose. Brake discs were replaced some time ago. Now the aircon compressor needs rebuilding. In the near future I will replace all remaining old rubber hoses. Not too much in more than 10 years of ownership and pleasure, I would say. In particular if the maintenance is done at home the costs are really not too high.

In little less than 2 years ownership of the 599 only one issue. The drivers door window came loose. Spent an afternoon fixing this, costs nil. Now an inspection service is due (I feel that bi-anual is fine, if the car is not misused). Will probably be done in spring at the Ferrari dealership, since I have other car projects going over the winter, which do not make sense to outsource . I anticipate a few grand. Compares with a gain of value of around 15 grand in the last 2 years (or I made a great deal when buying the car, whatever).

If I would have bought a (boring) new Mercedes CLS one (!) year ago, put 15,000 km on it, then alone the loss of value in this one year would be about 25-30 grand.

Compare!

P.S.: OK, the first owner of the 599 realized alone a loss of value of about 6.--€ for each single km he drove, similar with the 550 .....

 

Ferrari ownership has nothing to do with rational... That being said , I drive mine every chance I get . It's all about passion.

 

Buy wisely and the money saved on the Toyota depreciation will pay for the Ferrari maintenance.

 

Both will get you there in one piece. The question is how much fun do you want to have getting there. If you have to justify the cost then it just may not be the right time. Lastly, Taz is right. Do not defer maintenance and don't buy from someone who did.

 

This is why there is no such thing as a cheap Ferrari. The low price ones usually have deferred maintenance. The cost of bringing them back to spec can easily outrun the cost of buying a nice car to begin with. Rough rule of thumb, $3K-$5K per year plus a minimum $10K fund in case of a major issue (and that doesn't include any depreciation, insurance, or tires). If you can't hang with that, you should hold off for now.

 

I know what you mean. What I do to minimize risk is use my Carrera as my DD and drive the F cars on special occasions. As much as I love my Carrera it's not a car I need to worry about hurting. Porsche made a zillion of them and the value is dropping like a rock.

Do you still have the manual 456? If so then maybe you should sell it to me and buy a newer Ferrari that has cheaper parts

 

You probably start by making 10-20 times the average Toyota owner. It's all relative. Let's say the average 612/599 buyer is probably striking in the $150k range on a 9-10 year old example, how much would a 9-10 year old Toyota cost? 1/20th?

 

Or you split the difference and drive a Lotus like I do.

Sent using mental telepathy

 

Wouldn't say it's all about passion. I would more say it's all about what you can afford.

I have a few customers who treat their ferrais like a Toyota. They drive them everyday. To them, it's a nice looking car. Nothing more. They couldn't tell you what model is what, or anything about past Ferrari cars. They simply don't care. Heck, I have a 430 customer that doesn't even know the year of his car. He bought it because he likes it.

When somthing goes wrong, he brings it in, tells us to fix it and never looks at the bill. Half the time I don't even see him. He just pays and sends somebody to pick it up. I have his credit card on file, and he gets mad at me when I call with estimates. "Just fix the damn thing" he says..click.

 

At one point several years ago I sold my second Ferrari, an F430 spider, because I was a bit worried about business. I replaced it with a new corvette which I sent to Lingenfelter for a 600hp supercharger package. I was so disappointed with the interior, I started looking at upgrades, leather panels, dash inserts, and racked up a shopping cart for some $17k in parts and thought, this is crazy, total investment would have been $97k. So I skipped the interior, except for the stereo, sold it a year later and lost like $30k because it was just a corvette and I lost interest. I'm an idiot sometimes.

Next was a 612, leading the field out of pit row in my avatar above. Cost me $84k plus about $6k in service and was bathed in high quality leather, every inch, top to bottom, back to front, way beyond anything I could ever have done to the corvette. It was a wonderful car, supreme enjoyment every time I drove it. Put some 5k miles on it in 18 months, a bit less than the vette but not a hell of a lot. Sold it for about what I paid.

The next Ferrari, the 599, I essentially drove for free for a little less than a year. I got a great deal on her and sold her for a bit more than I paid, enough to cover shipping, tax, service, everything.

Ferrari's don't cost as much to own as the OP may think. Occasionally there's an expensive service, but they hold value well after they've done their major depreciation. The total cost of ownership is better than a lot of less inspiring, more common performance options like AMG or BMW M series. It's a blessing and a curse people think they cost a fortune. That one urban legend, at least for the secondary market, is quite the sociology test around the neighborhood. People treat you differently for owning a ferrari, and have no idea the cost of ownership in their mundane S550 is perhaps higher.

 

But don't you wish all your customers were like that!

 

That is a good point. Prior to my 612, I had a MB S55 AMG. That was my entry into "fast cars" and it was fun to drive. I would say that the last 2 years that I owned it, I spent about $2-5k/year on maintenance. When I sold it, I lost about $25k on it (about $5k/year depreciation). Add the depreciation to the maintenance, and the yearly cost goes up. So far have had my 612 about a year, and have very been fortunate... Cross fingers...

 

This is so true. With good strategy, timing and some luck you can actually drive Ferraris for free or even make money. Not a good idea to quit your day job to speculate, but hey what's wrong with seeing asset appreciation now and then?

One thing that's for sure is that the newer cars are downright cheap to maintain considering how fast and nice they are. I have a 612 in the family too. Buying one used is the best value in the world. Amazing luxury V12 GT for the price of a boring luxury German sedan.

 

A car is for driving.

 

Quite right!

I got paid to drive my 1st two Ferraris and fully intend to make it 3 in row.

Shh...don't tell the general public!

 

stuff start to fail after 5 years for a new ferrari, but if u got the money, no other car is more fun to drive.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/612-599/504228-just-did-600-mile-3-day-trip-thru-best-roads-there.html

 

What a thread subject!

I'm sure we've all felt this at times, but we respectively bite the bullet to enjoy what these cars have to offer. It's a rip-off of sorts quantitatively but not qualitatively.

And hence this forum- We have each other to rely on and help us through

 

I think it depends on the model though. Some F cars are super reliable and have less things fail than some sports cars from ze Germans.

Every car company has their good and bad models and can have good and bad years within a model run. Porsche had the IMS fiasco and BMW had the rod bearing issue with the S85 V10 and S65 V8...

 

Uhm... Using this approach, how do we find the 612? Pretty reliable, no?


Enviado do meu iPhone usando o Tapatalk

 

I guess I forgot to add one more variable. In addition to the model and the model year I think there can also be more variance from one specific car to another with Ferrari than there is with higher volume car makers.

My father bought a 612 used a couple years ago and has had incredibly good luck. He's put a ton of miles on it because his commute is 40 miles round trip and he was using it as a DD for the first year. It now shares DD duties with a truck he uses on days when he needs to carry something or make stops in areas he'd rather not drive the Ferrari.

He hasn't had anything major go wrong. An oxygen sensor and some of the TPMS sensors needed to be replaced and there was an issue with the air conditioning that he fixed himself. Overall he's had less problems than he did with the 2010 Panamera he had before the 612.

 

When I was young I thought porsche parts and maintenance were silly expensive. I babied the car, and was really careful...

Then I got a ferrari. All of a sudden, porsche parts seemed stupid cheap, maintenance was a joke, and I started driving the porsche like it was free...

I now baby the ferrari...

I wish I were rich enough to say I am comfortable fixing things should they break with an open wallet... I can pay for it, but it wouldnt be fun...

Its all relative...

Perhaps if I even get a lambo, the ferrari will be cheap in comparison...

It is harder to enjoy a car if you can't comfortably pay other to fix a worse case scenario failure... I have gotten to the point in life that I can absorb an engine failure in a 930... Not so much in the testarossa...

 

That's exactly what happened to me Porsches seem downright cheap to run these days. Hopefully one day I'll have enough money to get a Zonda and F cars will seem cheap in comparison