Cars we know are pigs

I was thinking this morning about the cars we all know are pigs. I have had, since becoming involved with the Ferrari community, such a deep respect for everyone involved with these cars, to the point of keeping my mouth shut when I have seen things that wernt kosher. You know, the toes you step on today may very well be attached to the butt you have to kiss tomorrow. Plus you have those Cicilian type guys around, don a wanna be a pissin a nobody off, ya know whatimean.

For example, a couple years back an 2V GTSi with brand new interior was offered to me at a very reasonable price, simply because it had _____ miles on it. I can assure you just about everyone around knows the seller of that car, he is a good guy, but at any rate, I passed on it, mostly because I just had to have an early carbed GTB and I was holding out, and the car was sold to someone else. But the very same exact car showed up a month or so later on eBay, I went back and forth from the pics I had of the car originally, to the eBay pics, and it was the same car, right down to the XXXXX serial number. Only now it had mysteriously lost ____ miles. I couldnt believe it, how could someone do that so blatantly. And yet, who would I tell? And if I told, who might I have turn on me??? I dont know who bought it, and I never said anything to the seller who originally offered it to me, or anyone else, and in fact I later bought a car through him. But the guy he sold it to was an obvious snake.

Maybe one of you guys bought it, I dunno. I feel real bad about it even over four years later. But I didnt know everyone around the community enough back then to be busting anyones balls at the time, or sticking my nose in where it dont belong. Heck, I wasnt even around Fchat back then. But I would bet many others around here feel the same. Many of you have seen it, you know about it, but you keep your yap shut. Well, most of you anyway. When you read particular posts in which the author of that post claims to have seen, on multiple occasions, Ferrari's with unplugged speedometers, it doesnt take a college degree to add 2+2 and figure its going on all over. Did he note the serial numbers?? Would he give them up if he did? Would I be dumb enough to point out his name??

Now take car repair shops as another example. Having first hand experience on the repair end, I am pretty sympathetic to the mechanics who have to deal with BS customers all day long, customers who blame and accuse mechanics of doing things they never did, or having totally unreasonable expectations. But I am also fully aware of the fact that most of the guys claiming to be a mechanic should have thier fingers smashed with a ballpien hammer and never allowed near a car ever again. They are hacks. Rip offs. They know fully well how to read a book, and they know how to fix things correctly, yet they bump along fixing peoples cars in as crude a manner as possible, charging 10 times thier real expense or worth, and not standing behind thier work when it comes back. Or possibly worse, they buy up junk cars, fix them just enough so they run, and dump them back out on the street as running cars with a "major service", some phony reciepts, a cleaned title.....and we get stuck with them.

I guess what Im asking, is if there is a way to have a discussion on this subject, without hurting anyone. We know full well that the guy who is stuck with the car he thought had ____ miles, isnt going to want everyone to know his car could have ____ more miles on it and blow his investment. But we also shouldnt all be so shy all the time we need to keep our mouths shut when we see something that is obviously wrong. My car is a pig. I can bring it back, I like working on it, im glad I have the opportunity to own it, and the God given talent to know how to. But when you see so much hack work on everything you touch or look at, well, maybe im just venting. But this Ferrari deal is more akin to the way cars were dealt with back in the 1940's. Odometers spun back for every sale or kept disconnected, engines put together with mismatched parts, cars moved around the country to clean thier pedigree, phony records, heavier oil in the gearbox or sawdust to hide worn out gears, body filler, crappy welds and broom job paint jobs to gussie em up and pawn them off on the unsuspecting. Its pretty sad. So, where do we draw the line, and what do we do about it??? Or will I find I wish I had just kept my dang mouth shut???

 

Paul, I think you just have more manners than a lot of people here who would be quick to publicly point out something as glaring as you mention. I totally hear you--I don't want to step on toes or come off as a jerk either and I often keep my mouth shut (though probably not as often as I should). The only answer to your question is: it depends. If you call a pig a pig, some people will respect you for it, some will hate you for it and some will lie somewhere in between. I think a lot of the perception will rest in how gently you handle it. Sometimes its not what one says that gets him in trouble, but how he says it!!

I have no idea if any of that made sense! But let me tell you, a guy that rolls back an odometer should not get away with it. We should all be aware of who that seller is so we can band together and put his ass out of business.

Birdman

 

Absolutely, I totally agree. But what about everyone unplugging thier speed sensor or yanking the fuse? Rolling the miles back 15 or 20K is bad enough and is a federal offense if caught, but I think its very lightly enforced. Putting 40K on your car while the odometer stands still is even worse, but thats considered legal because you can just say it wasnt working for the last week?

But mileage is only a small part of this. The early V-12 cars dont even have odometers, but they too have suffered all the same ills of shoddy work, mismatched parts and BS stories. "Oh yeah, it was all overhauled three years ago by whatsisname, I have the (phony) reciept for all the work right here."

 

Paul,

Unfortunately, if you want to be honest and expose things, you will end up hurting people in the short run but, it will help the community in the long run. To me the key is that if you do make an issue public, be sure you have your facts right.

Regards,

Art S.

PS. My speedo drive has broken twice since I've owned the car. This is not a reliable component on the older cars, so a slight descrepancy may be OK.

 

I have caught several mileage discrepancies within the registry. I have gone as far as calling the dealer and telling them I know what they did. Some don't care and others have actually pulled their listings. I have swayed a few Fchatters away from cars like this also. I tell every potential Ferrari 355 owner to check the registry BEFORE you purchase--you never know!!! Wish every Ferrari model had some type of registry like this to help keep down those potential problems,... Here is the 355 registry site below if anyone wants to take a look. I have alot of information on the cars that I keep in a backoffice page of the site, but will release to potential buyers or sellers. to help them..

www.ferrari355registry.com

 

I had my car worked on when I first bought it by a (supposedly) reputable independent shop in MA. God knows what they were doing, but at some point they blew a fuse on the circuit that supplies power to the instruments. Rather than figure out what they did wrong, they decided that the way to fix it was to disconnect the speedo sender (!!) which anyone with the slightest clue about how the speeder sender circuit works will know CANNOT cause a fuse to blow. So they gave the car back to me with the speedo disconnected and said "there is some problem with your speedo circuit, so we disconnected the sender."

I couldn't believe they actually said that.

So I had to get under the car, long before I had a lift, and hook it back up. What a pain in the ass. Disconnecting speedos is probably very common.

Needless to say, I do not recommend this shop to anyone!

Birdman

 

If I saw a car listed with lower miles, I would point that out to the seller privately first, and that may be giving him too much of the benefit of the doubt at that. I would only go public if I could document the change and the seller did not disclose "miles are not correct". It's one thing to have an opinion on something and quite another to accuse someone publicly of a crime so I'd want to have my facts established.

As for shoddy work, well I've had my own problems with mechanics. I've done all my own work for about 5 years now and while I try my best, there are a few things that aren't exactly textbook but work well. If I ever sell the car I would not want to be a DPO in the buyer's mind, so I would disclose the areas that he may want to attend to. I am quite proud that it only took me two years to remove the last bit of duct tape that was acting as a structual member so at least I'm not THAT bad!

Ken

 

I would not hesitate to ask a seller (especially a dealer!) something like "This seems to be the same car that was offered some time ago on XXXX with XXXX miles on it. Didn't seem to be a mistake at that time.... do you have any idea why the car now only shows XXXX miles?" I think that's an innocent enough question, and I'd not hesitate to post details of the results on the forums, for the good of the community, even if I were not even in the market for such a car. Also doesn't hurt to just post a thread on forums that a certain car is now showing lower mileage now than previously advertised on XXXX. Let's all help each other out.

 

While in no way defending the immoral and also illegal practice of rolling back or disconnecting odo's, the problem is greatly exacerbated by the unrealistic expectations that a Ferrari is worn out and ready for parting out if it has more than 30,000 miles. The vast majority of older Ferrari's for sale have wear commensurate with WAY more than the mileage showing. While a Ferrari definitely isn't as bullet proof as a Japanese car they are pretty typical for a European car of a similar vintage. The big difference is if something breaks it costs way more to get it repaired. Therefore preventive maintenance is not an option but a requirement.

It's good to see a number of FerrariChat's posters starting to acknowledge their cars breaking the 100,000 mile barrier. My driver will be there in a few years.

 

Dang, this is my car, isn't it?! Shoot! I knew 82,000 miles was too good to be true.

 

I think it is interesting that many of what I think of as the "true enthusiasts" I have encountered seem completely oblivious to the miles on the car. It is all about the current condition for them.

For my own part, I strangely have a desire to work on cars. Why, I don't know because I have no talent for it, but I think I have enough sense not to do anything harmful. One thing I have learned from my Harley is that given our abilities and limitations both man and machine we are both better off taking care of each other.

Seamus

 

I agree with you on this one. When I bought my 308 (as a REAL rookie) I thought I was getting a pretty good deal on a 26 year old car with ONLY 90K miles on it. That being said, somewhere in the cars no too distant past it was not properly maintained and problems were ignored so it did turn into "The Money Sponge". This was not a direct result of the miles though, it was a result of someone not taking care of the car properly. I'm now one of those owners who is proudly looking forward to breaking the 100K mile mark and am even more proud of the condition of the car. I think the expectations of the market are unreasonable.

As for the OP's question I think Rick (FandLcars) hit the nail on the head. Check out the discrepancy and if it's not cleared up post the info here. You could be saving someone a lot of money and headaches!!

 

While I have no doubt that Ferrari odometers fail, out of the six Ferrari's I have owned I have never had an odometer fail. Even when my former 348 speedo would jump form 10mph to 100mph intermittanly for a few days, the odometer continued to work