Low Mileage - is it really a good idea?

The knee-jerk reaction to low-mileage Ferraris (and more often they are the supercars, hence my post here) is that they simply must be better than "high" mileage cars.

Let's consider a 1990 F40. Now, for simple upkeep purposes, to be sure fluids are brought up to temperature, the car is driven enough to move all bearings, fuel us run through to minimize condensation and deterioration of fuel tank contents, and the car is put through paces enough to be certain all systems are go.

Wouldn't you think a 25-mile drive once a month would be sort of bare minimum for this? Now the car should probably also have had about 1000 miles of break-in time to start with. If you run a car only 25 miles a month, that is 300 miles a year and by the time you get to 20 years, you are at 6-7000 miles bare minium or I'd think the car was actually being neglected.

Now it is probably possible to turn fewer miles with extreme measures in preservation and storage, I suppose, but IMO buying a car that has sat up, rather than being carefully used and maintained is a negative, but few people, when it comes down to spending money, seem to agree.

Now in all candor, my experience is based on an F40 that we bought with about 12K on it. That part was fine, but it was under 1000 miles in the last year. Let me tell you, brother, the "normal" belt service was just the tip of the iceberg - the fuel system was a mess and tanks had to come out, injectors serviced, slave cylider overhaul, and other details galore. Car is a joy now, but for about 7 months something new went wrong every time we drove the car, and every problem was traced not to USAGE, but to NON-Use.

Personally, I'd never touch a car again that does not show use and regular service on the order of at least 3-500 miles per year. And I bet our F40 is considered on the "high" side of mileage in terms of value for resale, but represents an average of under 600 miles usage in its life, which IMO is nothing - that is 50 miles a month!

 

I totally see your point, and agree. I mean, don't get me wrong if you want a garage queen show car that will be trailered all over the place a very low milage one would make sense. BUT, if you want to drive it, track it, and have fun with it I too would rather one with some mileage that has been all sorted out and in good running order. As you said, these cars are meant to be used. I'm sure Enzo would rather see a F40 with 50K of cruise and track miles then a 700 mile garage queen. It still amazes me that in the exotic world even 30K is considered "high" mileage. I'm car hunting now for a Vette and I would consider 30K low mileage LOL.

 

I'm sure it won't shock you to hear that I agree totally.

One other point with Turbo Cars. Once I get them good and hot I always remember to cool them down carefully and not shut them off before they are cool.

I can't understanding not driving them regularly and agree that it really damages cars.

I've put over 40K street miles on this one over 20 years.

P 4/5 has close to 8K miles over four years.

Interestingly that comes to about 2K of use per year for those two.

Cheers
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Do you mean to let it idle for a certain amount of time prior to shut off? How much time? This is new information for me.

 

Good point on turbo cars! Yes, after any vigorous driving it is a good idea to let the car cool (while running) for a bit. If you have ever seen exhaust gas temperatures on a turbo, they can go to 1500 deg F or more under heavy load and stay at 1200 for a while after that.

What this means is that immediate shutdown exposes the turbo bearings (which are water and oil cooled) to heat soak and potentially "coke" as most motor oil will break down over 300-350 deg F.

I prefer to let the car cool down while under way, with very little throttle or brake input, but good airflow across all the coolers and brakes, ratehr than simply idle. Even then, a minute of idling is a good idea. Always plan a drive to have a gentle ending!

My latest turbo track car has a heat soak pump that circulates water after shutdown to cool the turbo - it has no radiator fan so long periods at idle are not an option.

 

Exactly.

Best

 

Thanks. Will heed that advice.

 

I have never heard of this before, but it makes perfect sense.

 

Coking of the oil after a hot shutdown was one of the reasons that IHI (Japanese manufacturer of the F40 turbos) added a water jacket to their series of turbos in the late '80's.

 

The interesting thing is, why should a very low mileage car(less than 2-300miles a year) actually be worth more than a car that has done say 500 or 600 miles a year. Let's face it by the time it comes to recommission this car and get it spot on you will have spent a lot more than a car that has been regularly used and serviced. Is it because the people who like garage queen cars and want to trailer their cars to events are more anally retentive characters who are prepared to cough more for this privilege? I think there should be a rethink of cost/value in relation to mileage. I mean currently, assuming other things comparable, the value of say an F40 is unlikely to be any different whether its a 35k or 50k mileage car. However there does appear to be a difference between an under 5k and a say 12k car. Why??? Doesn't make any sense.

 

Kevin you make some great points.

But I think that the reaction in the marketplace to low-mileage Ferraris is not that they are "better", but simply that they have less wear & tear.

We all know that a higher-mileage car that is properly maintained and well-tuned is usually a better driving car.

 

driving off-boost for the last 5-10 minutes is normally sufficient in a turbo car.

 

For low mileage meaning low wear & tear, agreed on cosmetics, but I have to say I am not so sure about mechanicals. Maybe less "wear," but I think I'd be a bit concerned about the "tear" of disuse. But a low mileage car will be more pretty

 

But a low mileage car will be more pretty[/QUOTE]

And why exactly?? It's purely down to the owners care and maintenance. Not on mileage.

 

Interesting topic. ! Very good question !

I remember I bought a car from an older friend of the family for theprice they were offered as trade in against a new one, and the car had never broke the speed limit and never been had it's turbo used, on the drive home the turbo inlet pipe collapsed due to lack of use. Although I had no other problems, but it goes to show not using something to it's full potential can cause more harmthan good.

I have a friend who deals with commercials and I recently drove a van of his which was 2 years old and had 260,000 miles on the clock, it had been used by 3 shift workers 24 hours 6 days a week. And it drove like it was brand new, yet I have driven the same van at the same age with just 25k and the higher miler drove 100% better. Yet if I was in the market for a car I would want the low miler with little use hopefully no paint, but I think this is purely down to a resale point of view.

 

Keith, I agree completely.

A friend of mine actually had an F355 F1 that got very little use. He in fact had almost as many mechanical issues as it did total miles in the short time he owned it. It was constantly being flat bedded into the the dealership when it wouldn't start, was leaking some fluid, had cracked heads, failed F1 gearbox, etc..

The diagnosis for each trip was pretty typically traced back to lack of use.

When I asked another friend (who was/is a mechanic at a Ferrari Dealership) once about how reliable in general Ferraris were in the real world, his response equated to "The ones that get driven are as generally reliable as any car, needing regular maintenance and wear items replaced as needed. The real problems and pitfalls come when they just sit, looking pretty." Now that's not an exact quote, as that was back in the late 90's, but I remember very clearly the message conveyed.

Now that doesn't mean a higher mileage car has to be cared for poorly or have ridiculous cosmetic issues. There are plenty of real world examples of well used and cared for exotic and sports cars out there. So I guess the upside to the common theme of low mileage (read: generally mechanically problematic or requires major services after purchase) exotics/sports cars is that for the buyer who may be in on the secret truth, he can actually spend less for more enjoyment in the long run. The only real suck is if you're selling, since your target buyer has to be privy to that secret truth. That and of course depreciation that the false and more common stigma that goes with higher mileage cars brings.

See you at the track!

 

There's a 3K mile F 40 for sale in FLM asking 450K which says that the owner paid 575K for it.

 

I don't think the real issue is whether or not low mileage is a good idea, even though there are a lot of good points made here about the misconceptions behind any car's wear/mileage ratio.

The real issue is this: Why in the world would you not want to drive the thing in the first place?

If you value your money so much as to buy something only to neglect employing its main source of enjoyment so that you minimize the risk of tearing it up, you're just plain crazy.

Go buy gold. Or something.

My $.02.

Cheers.

M

 

I think the reasoning was that if you bought a low mileage F 40 and kept it low mileage you'd make money. The car being offered in FML proves that that is not always true. In that case the owner will lose at least 125K on his 3K mile F 40.

 

your signature sums up my thoughts on that

out of curiosity, how many miles have you done on the Alfa 8C?

 

Not enough, about 4K in the first year. Keep in mind I try to drive all of my cars and there are over 16 of them. I average about 2K a year in each one.

 

hell of a problem to have, Jim

 

Believe me I know just how lucky I am.

 

low mileage f40 = kiss of death

 

Oh yes, I agree; and I can understand why someone who knows market trends for supercars would do just that.

It's not a terrible business idea. In most cases (especially turning recently debuted supercars for profit) it's probably very smart.

I guess it's just a bit disheartening sometimes. And I feel sorry for that poor F40 owner who chose market value over pleasure only to find that, in the end, he lost out substantially on both.

But it's not my car, nor is it my decision to make.

And of course, there are crazies who go in the complete opposite direction and buy supercars only to send them back to the design factory for complete fantasy world rebuilds...



Cheers.