2014 California knocking and stalling

As to cause, similar sounding thing happened to my 911 when I put in "bad" gas. Put in a bottle of Techron and filled up with highest octane gas I could find (93 here in Texas) and in the fanciest suburb (faster gas turnaround), and problem went away.

More importantly, I would not wait 3 months to get to a dealer to check out, unless it's just impossible with your schedule...T

 

I had a similar situation and I suspected it was gas that wasn't high test as advertised. A fresh tank of "good" brand high octane (93) corrected the problem.

 

"Knocking" can indicate pre-ignition, which can seriously damage an engine. Most likely it's a bad sensor, but it could be mechanical. I strongly suggest you not drive the car until it can be looked after by a tech with a code reader.

 

The most common cause is likely bad gas. However, if you believe that is not a viable cause, it's likely a sensor.

The ECU's advance (or retard) timing, and there is an actual anti-knock profile (i.e. to prevent this), so you might be having any one of several specific issues (i.e. a sensor bad), or a series of them (eg. low fuel pressure, one bank runs lean, car tries to correct it, clogged filter, etc etc.)

No alarms on the dash?

As stated, 1) personally, I would not drive the car 2) I'd get it to a dealer and have the ECU downloaded 3) if it is gas, they can drain the tank and freshen up the fuel. 2014 means it's under warranty, should they should be able to pick the car up, or otherwise get it there.

 

I don't think it's the gas, either.

 

Here are something else to keep in mind. No diagnosis is complete without answering these questions.

When did this problem start happening? Do you recall the occasion and where you bought gas just before it happened.
Did you just buy the car and was it like this from the start?
If you had the car new since 2014, how was the car before this happened?

I always get my gas from the same gas station or at least the same brand and grade of gas. If I have to use some other gas I use a Shell Premium grade. I actually prefer Shell but ESSO stations are more numerous and handy. ESSO Premium is OK.

 

Look at it this way: if you burn off the gas and fill it with a fresh tank with the cleaner like some are suggesting here you may fix the issue. If it proves not to be the gas you are also running the risk of possibly wrecking your engine/transmission as the car is warning you that something is wrong without any lights (yet).

IMO get the car to the dealer ASAP and stop asking people on the internet advice on how to diagnose knocking noise on a modern-era Ferrari California.

 

If it is an issue with gas quality, you can verify that immediately by adding an octane booster to whatever is still left in the tank. It's a very well-known additive. OTOH, it could also be improper tuning of the engine, as in overly-aggressive ignition timing. That's one reason why it's important to know whether the problem occurred in a 1-owner car or if it occurred to a used car with possibly unknown background.

 

forgive me, but that does not add up.

It's true that DFi engines can and do accumulate some carbon buildup over time, and the injectors themselves lose performance and can benefit from a removal and professional cleaning. My benchmark for this is our race team would do intake cleans and injector cleans relatively frequently, and we could see the before/after performance of each injector.

However,

1) your Cali is 2 years old. How many miles? FWIW, in a 10,000km car, the actual effects from the carbon and injectors was maybe 3-5% on an engine that was driven hard.
2) I find it hard to buy the "knocking and occasional stalling" are anywhere near common
3) At least in my eyes, knocking and/or stalling are not "things to live with".
4) December is a ways away. They are too busy to take you earlier? I'd try FoSF.
5) if the FoSV SM actually told you that, get it in writing, including his confirmation that there is no need to get it looked like. I'm sure you can let the car SIT until December, if it were mine I'd keep it parked.

 

Yes, I concur. This does not add up.

I think the OP is confusing knocking with hesitation, stumbling, poor throttle response and poor acceleration which are symptoms of carbon buildup on the backs of intake valves as well as injectors. These are not symptoms of knocking which results in dangerous pre-ignition of air-gas mixtures that WILL damage your engine if you continue to drive the car like that. With knocking you will actually hear PINGING if your engine is knocking, "PING, PING, PING..." when you apply throttle. Your engine will eventually stall and STOP. This does not happen with fouled injectors. An engine with fouled injectors may stumble, lose power and hesitate but it won't ping and stall.

If your dealer says your injectors are (probably) fouled, you probably had bad gas or some dirt that somehow got past the filters and got into the injectors. Fouled injectors can be avoided or fixed by exercising the car at higher engine revs along with periodic addition of fuel injection cleaners to a full tank or a half-tank of gas. Use up the gas and then do an oil change to remove the detergents of the cleaners which would otherwise contaminate the engine oil and cause engine wear.

When people putter their cars around town too much, they end up with engines that never get hot enough to burn off the carbon that can deposit on the backs of intake valves or inside injectors because they don't completely burn off at lower running temperatures. Performance cars need to be driven hard on a regular basis. Just like the CCM brakes in our cars, they are designed to run HOT, not cool. Taking it too easy on your Fcar will often result in premature problems.

 

Hello folks & rfg,

Have you had the car inspected by the dealer yet? I have a 2010 California. I purchased the car in August of 2016 with 5300 miles. Truly love this car. I noticed some knocking (mostly high gear while driving up hill under light to moderate throttle). I limited fueling to a local Chevron station in Newport Beach. That seemed to help a little but still pretty consistent knocking.

The Car has the factory extended warranty until summer of 2017 (thankfully). Car is at the dealer now and Ferrari NA is telling the dealer to drain the gas and refuel (which isn't covered by warranty). I think this is a total waste of time, frankly (and i think my service advisor agrees). Anyway, he seems pretty concerned about the knocking and told me to plan on leaving it at the dealer for a bit.

Would love to know if anyone here has any new information. Thanks.

-bobby

 

Actually, driving uphill in high gear, light throttle, is not the best idea. Two things.

FIRST
You want to be in a lower gear when you go uphill because the engine is under extra load due to gravity. You want the engine to turn over more rapidly. Otherwise, going uphill can significantly increase combustion chamber temperatures - it's due to physics.

When the weight of your car starts to drag against your transmission, eventually increasing the back pressure exerted against the pistons, pressure increases inside the combustion chambers. It's physics - temperature will increase as pressure increases. Increasing engine RPM reduces back pressure against the engine because it reduces the amount time gravity has to work on increasing pressure during each cycle of ignition.

Since you are not the original owner, you also can't be sure if the car has been exposed to poor driving habits or abused... like filled with cheap gas by the previous owner(s). Cheap gas may have lower octane than stated, do not contain the same high tech engine cleaners used in the best brands of gas. It's not that likely but you could have carbon build-up around the intake valves, something that is known to happen with direct injection engines. Increasing temperatures in your engine's combustion chambers will increase the likelihood of pre-ignition.

SECOND
I am also guessing you are not used to driving manual transmission cars because if you were, you would not use a high gear when going up a hill... which, if done with manual tranny cars (stick shift), will simply stall the engine. Unfortunately, with DCT-equipped Fcars, drivers who do not have manual transmission experience can do the wrong thing, try to go up a hill in high gear, light throttle and the engine will stumble.

Fcars have flat-plane engines, which perform as designed only when revved. They are not like cross-plane engines in pickup trucks and muscle cars, which are designed to pull harder at low revs but can't rev very high. Fcars are not designed to putter around with, especially in hilly terrain. You don't putter up a hill, you (literally) roar up instead. The Cali's engine was designed to be revved hard.

Personally-speaking, I don't think your car's engine is knocking at all, I think it's just balking, stumbling and stalling because you were in too high a gear. Maybe you live in a hilly area, like the OP, in SF.

Don't drive your car uphill in high gear, light throttle. That's very bad technique.

OTOH, if you still want to use high gear going uphill, make sure you are already doing 100+ MPH, engine revving well past 4000 RPM. Otherwise, downshift to lower gears, 2nd or 3rd gear, or even 1st gear depending on grade of incline and vehicle speed.

 

4th_Gear,

Thanks for taking the time to respond (and in such detail). Have had a few more calls with the dealer since my initial post. But before we get to that let me clarify a few things:

First, i've been driving manual transmission cars since i was 13!!! So i'm pretty proficient with a manual etc.

As far as driving uphill in a high gear/light-moderate acceleration. When this happens, I have the car in Auto/Sport. I'm driving around town normal driving conditions and typical so cal traffic. When i get to an incline or hill, i'll accelerate normally (light to moderate). Now the interesting thing is that the car is already in 7th gear (40 to 45 MPH). When i start to accelerate the knocking starts and eventually the car shifts down. But i was initially thinking the same thing you were, that the car is just really "stalling". The dealer, however, drove the car and confirmed IT IS ENGINE KNOCKING.

I also thought we might have a case of bad gas (so i limited the refueling to one Chevron station in Newport Beach to the extent possible). Used the Techron in one tank as well. That seemed to help with a rough idle i was noticing but not so much on the knocking.

Here's where we are with the dealer:

1. They drained the gas and refilled at their preferred Shell station. Drove the car and experienced the knocking again; and

2. They pulled the spark plugs and said they looked bad. They recommended i do the 3 year service which includes changing the plugs. I was under the impression that the car had been recently serviced, but decided to go ahead with the service to be safe. Wait to see what the post service test drive yields and will update when i hear from them.

The dealer also said it could be a fuel injector issue. The good news is that the car is under the Ferrari Power Warranty until May of 2017.

Otherwise I really love this car. Hope all this gets sorted out soon.

 

Hi bsamini, thanks for being a good sport with my comments and updating us on your situation.

Since you mentioned the problem happening mainly in high gear I had assumed you had manually selected the high gear. However, entering an uphill section while in AUTO/SPORT is certainly valid if you were just driving around town under normal conditions.

Fouled spark plug(s) could cause timing issues that can result in knocking but it would be surprising since your car is serviced by an AD. I wonder what they meant by the plugs looking "bad" because as you probably know, plugs can go "bad" for many reasons. Ask the dealer to keep the plugs for you and label them with the cylinder# they came out of. I think you will want to examine them for yourself and hang on to the plugs as reference in case the problem reoccurs. Hopefully, there are not any other issues like carbon deposits on the intake valves.

I would be surprised to find a well-maintained low mileage Fcar with bad spark plugs so I think it would be prudent for an owner to get acquainted with why the problem occurred. Having the Power Warranty is only good when the car is already in the shop. Sometimes the dealer doesn't relay the owner enough information or maybe doesn't investigate enough and just replaces a damaged part without identifying what the actual cause of the part failure was.

Good luck and please keep us updated!
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Hello Everyone,

Picked up the car from the dealer today. Here's what they did:

1. 3 year service which includes plugs and some belts (and of course a few other things). I'm little surprised that Ferrari's system isn't centralized so they can see the car's service history (at other Ferrari dealers). Also, i found out that the prior owner purchased the car as a CPO car. So i would expect that all the service would have been up to date before it could have been CPO'd. In any case, i had them do the 3 year.

2. They also told me they did some software update or re-flash. This wasn't listed on the service order, but they told me it was done;

3. They also told me they did an induction cleaning (i'm guessing this a FI cleaning). This wasn't on the service order either. Not sure why they didn't list #2 and #3 on the paperwork, but I'll call next week on that.

As far as the knocking, i didn't notice it when i drove it home from the dealer (around 10 miles including a coffee detour) and a few hills to test it on. I did also notice that the car seems to auto downshift sooner and a little more briskly when i hit an incline. I'm guessing this is the software update at work. Also noticed that the car seems much smoother overall except that the car's jumpiness at stop lights and parking lots seems to be back. I'll update this post if i notice any future knocking or other related issues.

@4th_Gear, I recognize that one has to be thick skinned to post here (LOL). I appreciated your input and the spark plug chart. I did call them and get them to save the old plugs which they sent home in bag. I haven't had a chance to look at them closely yet. The SA did mention to me that the old plugs will look "better" because of the induction cleaning they did while the old plugs were in.

 

My California 30 2012 has a scratching/swish noise when changing to 6th gear at low revs. It sounds like an electronic sound nearly like the sound of central locking, which it is definitely not central locking. It definitely comes from the gearbox and only occurs in 6th gear. I took the service manager for a drive and he could not identify the noise. It does not happen in the lower gears, only in 6th gear. Has this happened to anybody's car or can anyone advise on it?

 

Was the 3-year service free given the 7-years included maint, or did they charge you for it? (I'm only asking because of the way you worded "I had them do the 3-year service".

 

Thanks for the followup bsamini.

Getting new plugs (and a tune-up) is always helpful when assessing the true condition of a pre-owned vehicle. I trust the 3 year service was covered under warranty since it was meant to fix the knocking which itself should be covered under warranty. Did you get the full service history of the car when you bought it? Some owners are not good with maintaining their vehicles and cars may miss routine service.

Software updates are usually good news (unless they make the car quieter like what appear to have happened to the 458). You can ask the dealer what the updates involved. It's a performance car after all so car guys would want to know.

The "induction cleaning" almost certainly refers to cleaning of the intake valves and not the fuel injectors (induction refers to air intake, not fuel). Coking or carbon deposit is known to collect on the intake valves as direct injection places the fuel directly into the chambers rather than through the intake ports so they end up not getting "cleaned" (high quality fuel contains detergents). I think this condition is made worse if the car is used on short trips and the engines not worked hard enough. After all, these are high performance engines made to tolerate track conditions. Owners should rev the engines and take spirited long drives, not short trips in slow traffic.

I'm glad to your problem being resolved. Knocking is a ridiculous problem for any relatively new car to have, let alone an Fcar. It will be interesting to see what remaining clues to the problem the spark plugs still display. As for your thick skin, I think online forums and exchanges with strangers do demand an extra degree of resilience, good will and sense of humour. I can appear very direct but I also stick to the issues... as well as the spirit of the exchange, whatever that may be.