Ignition coil failures

Dan, I was interested to see your post. I build COP ignition systems for the earlier V12 engines in the 550's and 456M's, and I've been curious to know how the COP's on the later Ferraris hold up.

With the elimination of distributors, and the advent of crank triggered ignitions, we became accustomed to not having any ignition issues with our cars, however when COP's came along that changed.

The Japanese were the first to put COP's on their cars in the early 90's, and by the late 90's they were sorted and reliable. The Germans were next, and they had continual problems with both Bosch & Beru COP's until well into the 2000's (and some would say they're still not sorted, ie the Cayenne Turbo, VW Passat, etc.)

The Italians were last, and I've been watching/listening for any reports on problems with the Ferrari setup. I wouldn't say your one data point constitutes a trend, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Age, moisture and heat are the enemies of all transformers (and COP's are really just transformers), so I think the only thing you can help with is ensuring they're well sealed, and no moisture gets into them. You really can't do anything about the age & heat.

One approach would be to consider Ferrari COP's as consumables that could be changed out every other major, ie perhaps every 10 years? This may seem overly conservative, but it should keep your car running.

Also, if I were the owner of a Ferrari with OEM COP's and I planned on keeping the car longterm, I would seriously consider buying a spare set now, and keeping them in a cool, dry place for the future. COP technology is always changing, and obtaining spares in the future may be difficult.

 

Funny thing is, the problem is with your 599, while your COP 575M, older and living in the same environment, has likely not had any problems.

On the 599, the parts catalogs on Ricambi's site shows the 599 coils have been superseded twice, so Ferrari had some problems with them, too. Latest recommendation is for the California coils, it appears.

The 575M coils were widely used and have not had many problems I have seen. One occasionally has failed, but nothing more than that.

 

Replacing them all as preventive maintenance seems overkill unless a trend starts that shows reliability issues. I see no reason not to keep a couple spares on the shelf though. I have a high mileage BMW 540 (2001) and have replaced a total of two out of eight Beru cops. The first failed at around 240k miles, the second around 250k miles. I'm at almost 270k miles now...so far so good. But a spare is on the shelf, just in case. They are super easy to diagnose with an OBDII scanner and simple to replace as well (maybe not so easy on a 599).