Maintenance

Hi, and welcome!

I just got into these cars a few years ago. Upon reflection, I wish I had done so a long time ago. I'm planning on adding to the fleet soon.

There are many facets to this, but I think the following can be said:

In my (and others') experience, a well-maintained secondhand Ferrari is not horribly expensive, provided you keep up on maintenance. The prevailing wisdom here is to set aside a few grand, maybe as much as $10k when you buy. For my car (83 Mondial QV with > 80k miles, one of the cheapest to get into), I've probably spend 2-4k per year over the last 3 years, and these costs are now diminishing as the car improves. Note that this is for a typical "driver" Ferrari, say 15-30 years old. Obviously costs will be quite different when dealing with real rarities.

Deferred maintenance is the killer, and you'll hear about this time and time again... It seems a lot of folks can afford to purchase one used, but then fail to keep up on maintenance.

Also, "garage queens" with very low mileage, while they might look pristine, will often have rubber and plastic parts that have perished... this might run into some money. If you are comfortable doing a lot of DIY these can be an excellent value nonetheless.

If you're comfortable turning a wrench, or if you're willing to learn, then a lot of the routine maintenance is trivially cheap.

That said, some of the parts prices can be a shocker. In many cases commodity parts are used in ignition systems, fuel injection and so forth. In other cases, the parts are truly unique to Ferrari and they can really cost a lot.

Ferrari service, whether from an official source, or from an independent, seems to be done to a very high standard. I think those folks generally take a lot of pride in their work, and there seems to be a disproportionate number of service professionals who are really at the top of their game.

I can't speak to purchasing a new car, though my friends who have bought new in recent years have all been delighted.

A couple of other things...

You will find the standards for Ferraris tend to be really high. This is a good thing.

The community is, on the whole, just wonderful. I've owned a lot of other cars and Ferrari folks are really first rate... very little of the squabbling and infighting, with self-proclaimed experts that seems to permeate some of the other car communities.

Oh, and the cars are just amazing... all of them.

Search around the forums, ask questions, find a local gathering so you can speak with some owners...

Best,
Charles

 

Great Question. I think you just need to flip the Merc numbers around and you'll be all set.

Oil chg = ~350 (Great value depending on the car you get)
Brakes = ~150 (per axel if you do it yourself)

LOL