What do you think the mileage life is for a regularly used California?

Read posts here by Mr. Rick Lederman. He drives his Calis a lot. And, enthusiastically. Think he's had two or three Calis. You never know if you'll win the transmission sensor "lottery", the top will malfunction, etc. but they seem very reliable cars, especially when used regularly.

I've had mine for 10 months, and am about to go over 12,000 miles. 7,000 on my watch. And, I'd never trade it for a 911. Of course, it helps that I already had a 911!

How much could you get for your car on trade in? I'd find out, if it's enough $ to get you into the new car you want, do it. If not, drive the wheels off your Cali.

T

 

Perhaps you should give us an idea of how long and how many miles do you want to keep the car.

If you intend to drive the car for an additional 60,000 miles I will predict a gearbox failure and variator replacement.

Each one of those items is at least $15,000.

But if you only intend to drive 25,000 more miles then you might not experience any of these two issues. Or maybe just one of them.

(I Logged 65,000 miles on my 2010 Cali)

 

I assume the predictions are based on personal experience?

65K miles. Very cool!

T

 

I enjoy driving a Ferrari. Drove my first F-car, a classic red/tan 360, 66,000 miles. Then came the Cali. My current 458 has 71,800 on her clock.

Come to think of it, I've driven 200,000 miles in my Ferraris.

Still looking ahead too. Hoping to get my first V12, the 812.

Anyway, back to the service predictions, yes they are based on my own experience.

 

You lose money every time you sell or buy a car.

If your daily driving is not of the grinding, horrible traffic nature I wouldn't worry about the mileage so long as you actually enjoy the drive. If you don't enjoy your weekday driving conditions you should keep driving a different car for weekdays. Drive what you enjoy driving, even on weekdays. My weekday fun driver is a full-size pickup truck. Don't worry about mileage and depreciation so long as the miles bring you pleasure and great memories.

The other thing to consider is boredom. If you drive the same vehicle everyday, for every occasion, it WILL feel quite stale after a while. This has to do with the way your brain works and not with the car or your intentions. It's not a money issue.

 

^ I agree whole heartedly with the above. I find the little (and big) differences among all our cars endearing when I get back in the driver's seat, and heighten my enjoyment of them. Even bopping around town in our 205K mile pickup truck, windows down, rock & roll blaring!
Of course, I'm lucky in that my morning commute is a 1/2 mile stroll, so I don't need a dedicated DD.
T

 

I don't own a Cali, but I've piled the miles on more than a few Ferraris.

On the DCT, I'd counter this claim as 1) most DCT's out there...Getrag or others....are actually proving to be very reliable over the long term at high miles (they are relatively new so just now going over 100K miles....VW, Audi, et al 2) MB uses the same gearbox and has had similar issues to Ferrari (i.e. small percentage of early cars had a design-related issue) and 3) MOST DCT "issues" are now easily repairable for a reasonable cost. In fact, you can source remanufactured and rebuilt Getrag gearboxes, so worst case, the cost is coming down

On variators, I don't have data so will defer to those who do.

As for Ferrari reliability, all of our "current and recent gen" cars have been REALLY reliable....our BMW, Porsche and GMC's have had more "material failures", and we drive our cars (40K miles in last 5 years?).

Over the long haul, I'm less worried about the powertrain, more with the inevitable suspension bushings wearing, magneheterological shocks needing replacing, etc. I honestly think that most BMW/Porsche/GMC's are "overbuilt" to deal with the realities of potholes and daily life; Ferraris less so. Miles don't hurt them, but rough conditions do.

Said otherwise, I know quite a few BMW's from 2009 that are costing people an arm and a leg when something breaks, Ferraris will probably be the same way.

 

The early Cali had DCT issues which were related to electrical and heat gremlins. Your knowledge of Getrag in other applications is probably not applicable to the Cali. I've seen many of these boxes out and opened. Mechanically they were all perfect

Ferrari did move the heat exchanger from the front of the car to the rear and that seemed to helped. But that move came I believe in late 2011 cars. My car was an early 2010. I needed my first DCT around the mileage which the poster has done. (a few more after that)

Replacing variators in an engine out affair. Not uncommon at 50,000miles in the early prodiction.

On the other hand, magneride is one of the most reliable and robust suspension systems.

It is far better than air or hydraulic systems which Mercedes uses.

I did not have any problems with them in my Cali or my 458.

 

How to best enjoy a Ferrari... That's up to how you feel and what day it is in your life

Worship the car as art. Keep it in pristine condition Baby and spoil it.

Or drive the hell out of it.

Or enjoy and then trade and keep chasing after the more shiny ball.

If we are lucky we can enjoy all of these pursuits.

 

My FF had done 44,000kms and solid as a rock. I DD it and if it was not my obsession for getting a Lusso I would have kept it for another 40k. Zero issues, they are fairly bullet proof and the biggest issue I had was the seatbelt extender that kind of worked most of the time.

We get a CaliforniaT in a few weeks after a long wait and cant wait to pile on the mileage. I even plan on driving it on mild winter days. Life is short!

Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk

 

95% of my Getrag experience is on the exact same box as in the Cali (and 458/FF/F12) for the street cars as well as the race cars. Aside from gear ratios, TCU software and external plumbing and packaging, this is a pretty broadly used design.

Agreed, the early (09-10) cars had wiring chafe and heat-related solenoid failures. At some point during late 2010, the Gen 2 was introduced which was a design fix. Most of the related DCT failures were on the early Cali's and very early 458's. Interestingly, the Challenge cars had a higher failure rate, primarily due to the sustained higher temps. The metal parts themselves are pretty tough, it's the electrohydraulics that typically have issues.

I (still) have seen no statistics or hard data (nor do I think we ever will) on the percentage of these gearboxes that had issues. Obviously, when it happened early on, it got a lot of attention, particularly because they were not repairable at the time. On our race team, we had 5 cars over 3 years that did about 8,000km a year (so, a combined 120,000km) and, aside from one gearbox suffering crash damage, we had zero failures. Of course, YMMV and earlier/original cars had a higher failure rate.

 

I know of a Cali 2011 with 50.000 miles which is doing fine without engine or electrical issues. I'm not sure if the DCT of this one had any problem in the past but might be the main concern.

 

There was some anecdotal chatter about the Mercedes version of the DCT being somewhat more likely to have a longer lifespan because they were more conservative with the software, and Ferrari was more aggressive, as you might expect. Then again, a Mercedes is more apt to have higher mileage than a Ferrari. I guess at the end of the day, you want to balance a worst-case repair scenario against the value of the car. A $25k motor rebuild is a catastrophe on, say, a depreciated 348 or Mondial in terms of the percentage of the car's value, not so much on a California or 458. But it appears that even to replace the whole gearbox won't cost that much anymore anyway.

Or just add $4500 per year to the cost of carrying the car, get the warranty and sleep easy (until you top 56k miles or whatever the cutoff is).

 

My California just broke 30k miles and no problems

 

The Getrag DCT mechanically is more than capable of handling the performance of the Cali.

It was electrical issues compounded by heat. The later DCTs had improvements to the electrical components.

However, the early Cali's may suffer from a flawed cooling system. Later a rear cooling system was added.

The 458 which has more performance and a very similar box has two radiators/ heat exchangers located next to the box compared to the early Cali's single radiator located at a distance at the front bumper.

Most of the Challemge 458
Race cars used a totally different single clutch Hewland box. A very quick tight and reliable manual shift sequential set up with dog cut gearing which could be optimized according to the demands of the track.

 

All 458 Challenges had the same Getrag DCT. 430C was the last of the F1 gearbox type. Only change in the Challenge gearbox was ratios and software.

The GT3 and GTE spec 458's are completely different beasts and had Hewland sequentials with paddles - though the 488GT3 and GTE now uses a transverse X-Trac. One primary reason is the rules specify sequential gearboxes only.

BTW as I stated earlier, the original run of 458 Challenge cars had more than their share of gearbox issues due to the problems noted above

 

Thanks for the corrections and details

 

There's a Cali out there with over $80k miles, 2012 I think, carfax doesn't show any major work, so perhaps the Getrag issue has been fixed. I have owned a 2014 911 and can tell you they can be driven to work every day, to the track on the weekends, and back to work on Monday. Rock solid. I've never experienced this reliability with Italian cars, but have no experience with the more modern Ferraris. Had a 308 Qv years ago and had no issues with 30k mi, but it was maintained. The Getrag issue reported here does concern me, as I am in the market, but perhaps it was an anecdotal issue and not a known issue for all the cars.

 

I bought the car 10 months ago with 9300 miles. I now have 24k and I love every mile. I keep the warranty up and will pay for Ferrari power for another year. I have just had to replace driver window regulator, and the windshield washer holding tank (apparently, a common repair). Both covered under my extended warranty.