Miles on a Ferrari vs. Value

I would "guess" that in the 50's and early 60's, a few F GT cars were actually raced on the track. With the tracking of a few F GT cars in past years, perhaps these GT cars were assumed, to almost all have been tracked ? Today, very few F GT cars, are put on the track. When you track a car, usually it is beaten to death.

Another "guess," is possibly the older engine components, did not last as long - pistons, rings, and cams etc... Perhaps the metalurgy was not as advanced as it is today ?

 

I think this is a response to different design concepts.

When my Celica AllTrac was 15 years old, the dealer asked why I was bothering to have service done, because the car was "old". At the time, it was the newest car I owned. The other two were Italians.

When the suspension got worn on the Celica it wasn't possible to correct the geometry. I had to replace the factory suspension with coil-overs.

Italian cars tend to be different. Services tend to cost a lot more* than people put into mudane cars, but you can rebuild and readjust pretty much everything. The only real limits are rust and major frame impact damage. On something like a 2v 308 or a Mondial-8, it might cost more to do a bottom end rebuild on the engine than the car is worth, but a rare '60s example will be worth rebuilding forever.

(*Actually, maintaining that WRC based turbo celica to the same standards cost about the same as the Ferrari over the same period, and more than the Alfa. But most people don't maintain Toyotas to sports car standards.)

I don't know if other euro cars are the same, but in over three decades owning Italian cars, I've never found anything that couldn't be fixed. Sometimes it just wasn't worth the money (or served as a handy excuse to upgrade).

I remember when the rule of thumb was that a '60s mopar product would pretty much fall apart at 75K miles.

People today are used to "Bic-mobile" disposables. So miles matter to the average buyer. But, personally, I'm more interested in the recent service history on a euro car than the total miles on the clock.

I'm well over the 60K mark on my 328 and still using it almost daily in summer. If that means that a Honda owner wouldn't want to buy it, c'est la vie. I figure I'm getting my money's worth out of it, by enjoying it. If I ever decide to replace it, there'll be a buyer for it out there somewhere. The internet can help find him. The average dealer can't expect him to walk in the front door, so I expect a high miles Ferrari won't have much "trade-in" value. But there's a difference between "trade-in" value and "resale" value for cars that aren't in the "90%" group.

 

IMHO,
6K miles should be a negligable difference unless it's the difference between 500 & 6500 miles & you're a collector. A 50K miles would be enough to affect the value somewhat, altho most of it could be mitigated by service data.

I agree with you that overall condition should be as large a factor as mileage.

Also, there's a lot of suspicion that Ferraris are just as subject to odometer tampering as other vehicles, possibly even more so given the high mileage price sensitivity in the culture. Without detailed records documenting mileage as it was accumulated, it would be hard to have a lot of confidence in the odometer reading.

The 308, 328, Mondial, & others have a simple electrical plug on the transmission sensor for the connection between it and the electrical odometer. It's very easy to unplug. Not sure about the Boxer, but suspect it's the same electrical odometer system. There are frequent reports of owners saying: "My mileage was getting too high, so I disconnected the odometer."

IMHO, if the engine has good leakdown & compression, & the overall condition is comparable, then I'd seriously consider taking a car with 20K more miles & pocket the savings. Especially since I would only be putting 2K or so miles/year on the car.

 

The good news is, eventually all of the F cars will be worth fully rebuilding. Even the (shall I say it) 400 series. Just look at the 1950 or 1960 cars. Even the most mundane of them are well worth rebuilding today.




Darrell.

 

Like it or not, 2500 miles/year is considered normal for Ferraris in the US (even less for 12 cylinders). So, like any other car, there is a penalty for "excessive" mileage. It's just that on normal cars the point is 12,500/miles a year, not 2500. Consumers need to decide whether to look for a great condition car with high miles or pay a premium for low mileage. To some degree, it depends on the intended use. For instance, if the buyer plans to use a vehicle say 30K/year for 2 years, he may be better off paying a premium for low mileage so as not to get killed when selling in two years. If the buyer plans on running the car into the ground, then a moderate to high mileage car might be a better value. Ferraris are a bit different in that people buying their dream car generally want it ot be as "like new" as possible but I would still counsel buyers to analyze their anticipated driving habits and choose a car based on the anticipated cost of running including depreciation per mile and maintenance. No analysis can be perfect, but it's a good place to start in the shopping process. For instance, someone shopping for a 430 they intend to drive 10K miles over 2 years would save money by buying a car with 10K on it rather than 500, but some people are willing to pay up for the pleasure of having a near new car to start with.

Dave

 

Go with the "high" mile car & put the savings in a CD... unless you're establishing a Ferrari museum.

 

That's the gist of it, I think. For the average Honda, VW or Ford, it's a one-way trip from new to scrap. With a Ferrari, you just accept that stuff wears out and stuff can be replaced. That mentality hasn't seeped out to the general public and probably never will.

Also Hardtop's comment about wanting a dream car in new-ish condition is a big part of it. It's funny but when people find out I have a Ferrari ('87 328) they often ask how many miles are on it. The unspoken implication is that buying someone else's old 'used up' Ferrari isn't the same calibre of dream as having a new one. You do buy some status with a low odometer reading.

I had my 328's interior redone this year, so it now looks and smells like new. Same 21-year old car, but the effect it has on people is astonishing -- people who don't know much about cars now really do think it's new. That, more than anything about its history, wonderfully balanced chassis, flat-plane crankshaft tone, etc., is what matters to the general public. (That and the silver horse emblem on the tail...)

 

I don't think it's that Ferraris wear out faster, I think it's that "normal" mileage is determined by the population of cars for sale. Most Ferraris are weekend cars, meaning 3rd car in a family household or 2nd car for a single person; or even 4th, or 5th car in a household. As such, 2-3K miles per year or even less is typical; so there are a lot of cars that have low mileage. Once those cars come back on the market, the median miles is much lower than other cars (even Porsches, which are often primary cars) so the higher mileage cars are outliers and depreciated more heavily in comparison. Why buy a high miles car when there are so many low miles cars available? Factor in the higher maintenance costs for higher mileage ($1-2K for 5K and $3-7K for 15K service intervals) as well as the feedback effect of anticipated depreciation on the marginal owner (i.e. the owner that worries about a $10-30K "loss" for driving 5-15K miles) and that perpetuates the low miles effect.

 

The Lamborghini does not age well and price drops very fast

 

I'll bet that Muira owners wiil disagree. Really though, most of these exotics will drop,-bottom then appreciate over a 20 year period.



Darrell.

 

But that thinking can get you in trouble. How many people wound up having to rebuild big time, because they figured it only had 6K on the odo, so the 10 year old car didn't need the belts serviced, or the brake fluid changed?

By my math, a Ferrari 15K service is 15K miles or 3 years, so 5K per year is "optimum" -- except that if you really enjoy driving it, you won't limit yourself to 5K miles in a good year.

The 328 is a blast to drive. If resale plummeted, I'd still be getting my money's worth, in entertainment alone.

 

You just missed out on a black 328GTS I sold with 99,901 Miles. The car was a concourse car in superb condition.
I am with you. Miles don't mean anything. COndition and care is all the matters.

328GTS with 30,000 Miles = $45,000
328GTS with 100,000 Miles = $32,500

I rather drive 70,000 Miles and lose another $12,500 than give a low mile car to the next guy so he can keep on polishing it.

 

How the mileage was put on the car is important too. I just bought a 2002 76k mile Accord for my son, and the miles were mostly highway. The car seems very new and in excellent shape. The interior has almost no wear at all. I traded my 1994 Accord for it, and that car was 84k miles of all city. You'd think it had 184k miles! It was very worn out indeed both mechanically and cosmeticaly. I can't say if the average Ferrari gets more highway or more city driving but I suspect the latter. This makes for lots more wear on the clutch and brakes in particular. Cars that have the reputation of being high maintenance like a Testarossa would be a lot more needy with 30k city miles today than a 308 with 60k miles of highway cruising. Not that a perspective buyer can tell how the car was driven, but if the trim parts look new it's always a good sign.

Ken

 

I would buy a 75,000 miles Fcar over a 35,000 miles one,
At least I know the 75K miles made it that far and bugs are all sorted out,
not sure if the 35K miles Fcar will make it that far without spending big $

 

The quote is actually by Steve McQueen in the Movie "Le Mans" to be precise.

Robert

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not eventually, i saw 2 400's at classiche in maranello.

 

Sorry for getting into this late but sometimes miles on F Cars get them past their design flaws. See 355s and valve guides or 456s and steering assemblies and valve guides, in both cases it seems a car UNDER 30000 miles is a crap shoot as to whether or not it carries the bad Maranello DNA. The pre Fiat era cars are far too dependent on how their owners maintained them. One of my friends had a 1967 Colombo 12 that ran for over 100,000 miles before rebuild. To be fair it smoked and its power was down, but it ran and ran well. Other guys can kill a 12 in a fraction of that.

 

There were so many more Diablos built than Miuras that you can't really compare the value of the two cars. Based on sheer scarcity of Miuras (and IMHO its ground breaking status as what some consider the 1st supercar) you certainly can't expect a Diablo to appreciate in value to the same degree.

Best regards,
Dino

 

+1. Stuff wears out. All things being equal, a lower mileage car is worth more.

How much more is arguable...

 

Things ive learned.

People with high mileage cars always say it doesnt matter.

People with low mileage cars always say it does matter.

People buying cars always want low miles and always say it matters.

People selling cars with high miles always say it was all highway miles, "just getting broke in".

People selling low mileage cars always brag about the low miles, and warn you not to buy a high mileage car.

I personally think the odometer was the worst damned invention they ever stuck on a car. It means almost nothing other than to tell you how far you last trip took you, helping you calculate MPG, or when to change oil. If they only had four digits we would all be far better off. Once a car is more than a year old it becomes far to untrustworthy of a device. They can be disconnected or otherwise stopped, and most are far to easy to alter. And with the premiums placed on low mileage, its just far to tempting to manipulate it.

I had a Toyota 4runner some years ago that was originally from TX. After I had it a few years, and when CARFAX became popular, I ran a report on it. I found the mileage had been altered twice before I bought it, the last time just two weeks before I bought it. That last time they rolled it back, it went from 152K to 92K. By the "book", it increased its value all of about $2K. The actual mileage without the two rollbacks would have been about 166K miles, plus 14 months of unindicated mileage. The fact it had almost 40K miles put on it in the preceeding 12 months could mean it had 200K miles or more on it. But compared to others I had looked at, this one looked cleaner and ran better than all the others, so the mileage seemed realistic. Why would someone risk a Federal Offense over $2K? And if they will, why wouldnt they for more money???

With some of you guys claiming a Ferrari is unsellable with mileage over 60K, when a car in equal or worse condition reading 1/3 those miles (or less) is worth twice (or more) the money, what do you expect people are going to do?

 

Of course it is worth more. Nobody argues that. The point is that even iff the car has a lot more miles the spread is not that great. Even if you look at the percentage difference on the 360 Spider it is about the same. Fact is, the difference in price is not that great between driven and not driven. Certainly not enough for me to not drive my Ferrari to retain it's "value".

In the case of the 328, that car was nicer than any 20K miles 328 I have ever seen. Since the car has only a 5 digit speedo I was joking that all I need to do was to drive 4000 Miles with the car and nobody would have argued if the car was a 4000 Miles 328 or not. That is how clean that car was.

Condition matters. Miles do to a certain degree but they are not the essence of value.