Highest mile Ferrari and when are they wore out?

last time I spoke with John here in Santa Barbara he had 183,000 miles on his 246GT, he is a member here and by now probably has more miles. His car looked great, rode and drove like a Dino should.

 

I've heard of numerous 300k + mile Ferraris of various vintages.

 

I know a 1974 308 GT4 that ran 380.000 km. I believe the engine has been changed once but the car still looks good and drives well.

 

I had a 308 done 120 k

 

Mine 84 308 has 94,500 so far. I can't wait for the rollover. I am going to try to get it this next year.

 

Theres a french 512 TR with around 330 000 kms . No rebuilt .

 

by the way, no rebuild with mine yet either

 

As easy as Ferrari speedometers are to disconnect, I suspect there are a lot more 100k+ mile Ferraris out there than their odometers indicate!

 

It's all in how you use them guess...

I recently saws an 18 month old Alfa Romeo diesel with nearly 150.000 miles on it which I would prefer over a 10 year old one with less than half that on the clock.

Those 150.000 miles must have been accumulated in long stretches and many miles per day otherwise it would impossible to reach that number in such a short period so that engine hardly had any opportunity to cool down hence very few miles with cold engine / oil.

I once was told that an engine wears as much in the first 7 miles of a 700 mile trip as in the remaining 693 miles due to the cold oil. Don't know if it's totally true but it makes sense.

Short trips kill your engine.

 

I havent seen to many high mile ferraris but when I was a car dealer, I once saw a vw with 815,000 miles. What do you say to a potential buyer, well they were highway miles. Never seen that before I wish I had a camera on me that day

 

Very accurate statement.
Keith

 

Chassis in my TR died at 140K but it was subjected to rain,salt,snow, and the Cross Bronx Expressway.

 

No, not reverse, but some models do reset to "0" (i.e., only 5 digits in the odometer). My amusing story is being at a self car wash cleaning the engine of my ex-308 and someone looking inside and saying "does it really only have 7 thousand miles?" while I'm sure he was thinking -- no way, it's too ratty for that. However, he had a positive reaction when I told him "no, that's 107 thousand miles" (and I sold it at 130K miles).

Can't comment on your question about the absolute maximum service life of the coachwork/chassis, but I use 90K miles for the maximum top end (of the engine) service life and 150K miles for the bottom end when calculating a deduction for mileage.

 

clyde who is a member here has a ferrari with over 100 k miles and the car is strong as ever.

 

You are 100% TOTALLY correct!!!! Seen it myself, first hand, etc., many, many times. MANY times.

 

alright doc! You ought to take a pic and post when it rolls over.

My 'ol 1984 Ford Ranger 4x4 has around 150,000...original owner too!

 

My 2000 BMW M5 now has 103,000 miles and it runs like it has just gotten broke-in!

 

What is a "short" trip?? How many miles, what about starting and stopping a warm engine, is that ok?

 

There is a local TR used as a daily driver and as of early October had 208,000 miles with only routine maint.

 

Depends on the oil volume of the engine. It wears most while the oil is still cold (thick).

On most of my cars I don't go over 3000 rpm for the first 10 miles of a trip and then another 5 miles or so in which I don't go over 4000.

There is also the issue of water vapour which will ALWAYS accumulate in the oil and which will be vented out when the oil gets hot. Many short trips (i.e. without getting the oil truely on working temperature) will prevent the water from being vented out and in the worst case your oil pump could start to suck water from the oil pan as it is heavier than oil and will sink to the bottom.

As far I know, stopping a warm engine (provided it has no cooling problems) doesn't do any harm.

Also note that the water temperature gauge is NO indication for how warm your oil is and especially with dry-sump cars, it will take relatively long for all the oil to warm up (count on some 20 miles or more). The cooling system is thermostat regulated which will only allow enough water flow to the radiator to keep the water (cooling liquid) at its working temperature and the temp gauge will indicated that it is "warmed up". This is largely (although not totally) independant of how warm your oil gets.

Late 1970's Volkswagens could be driven flat-out on the autobahn at around 120 on the odo all day long without cooling liquid temperature problems but many gave up the ghost due to overheated (read too thin) oil because of the continuous strain of the flat out driving. In most cases an oilcooler worked wonders.

Just my Euro 0.02

 

One important thing to consider about taxicab fleets is that their vehicles almost never see a cold startup, where a large percentage of wear happens.

 

i've read about a caprice taxi in NYC having over 900k on the clock and running strong.

 

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet, is running the car in its efficiency range. Many drivers will repeatedly, and during normal driving, accelerate at low RPMs where there is no useful torque/HP; this creates undue heat and stress on an engine.

I've run the same car in back to back sessions, where we both took basically the same lines, but I was exiting corners at 2K+ RPM more. The result was faster lap times, and cooler temps.

My last daily driver had a peak HP at 7600rpm. Other than when cruising, I kept the car above 5K for the most part. It had 240,000 miles on it when I sold it, never had any major problems, and comp. was within spec across the board.

Any high-strung car should be eating clutches if driven properly IMO (crazy hwy miles excluded of course).