Why the low mileage on this breed?

Hi & Welcome to the forum (I'm a newbie too!)

My *limited* understanding so far is that there is a misconception that low miles add to the value of the car.

I've found so far that sadly, a great many F cars have been clocked (not all I hasten to add), and the paperwork isn't as established as it should be. So mileage means nothing.

There is also the issue of a 20-odd year car with low miles, unless the perishable items (rubbers, etc) have been replaced regularly, you *could* have just as many problems as with a running older car.

I've had nothing but advice after advice to buy a car on condition alone - along with a VERY thorough check by a Ferrari specialist.

Hope this helps, and I'm sure that a great many more knowledgeable people will respond soon. This is a great site with some very useful information and friendly people

Enjoy - and the "search" function is invaluable!!!

Dan

 

Dan gave such a great response he's captured the essence of hundreds of conversations. many different reasons. I figure the people who purchased them new spent a lot of time working and didn't have time to drive them. Or they were purchased as part of a collection. Only a very few people buy these cars to drive daily. Good for us eh?

 

A lot of this harkens back to the older cars which were terribly unreliable. Just a few miles and they required repair or maintenance. My Lusso, for instance, was a money pit for many years. My 360 and 575 are solid and reliable. Hence I drive them much more. Still and all, a weekender does not accumulate a lot of miles.

 

The owners subscribe to the theory that: "Their girlfriends will be more valuable to their next partner if they don't have sex with them very often."

Just change girlfriend to Ferrari, and sex with to driving.

 

LOL.

Most of us own our Ferraris as the extra "fun car" and don't use it for daily driving. I typically average 3k miles per year on a Ferrari. This is plenty of week-end driving to the local car shows, overnight events, out-in-the-country drives, and social car & coffee get-togethers.

One thing to keep an eye on when buying a used Ferrari is how many miles have been put on the car in the last 2 years time period. You want to see at least 1k miles per year for the past 2 years time on the car. And the closer to 3k per year, the better, IMHO.

The service docs are the best way to investigate this. Normally, each service visit records the mileage of the car when it was brought in. If the person is at least getting the oil change done every 6 - 9 months in time, then you'll have a minimum of 3 service docs in the last 2 years time.

It is continued use and periodic service that keeps a Ferrari in good shape. So, a 10-year-old Ferrari with 30k miles on it could be a great car if 4k - 6k of those 30k miles were in the last 2 years of use. It could be a terrible car if it was a daily driver for 2 years putting on 15k miles per year and then basically sat for the next 8 years.

Good luck on finding the perfect car for yourself.

 

Not sure when Ferraris became more reliable.
My 1988 328 GTS was 100% reliable, so the 328 era or earlier is my guess.

 

For most people I think a Ferrari is a 4th, 5th, or 6th car. Hard to put a lot of miles on any particular car when you have so many to choose from.

I have a difficult time putting 1000 miles per year on my 328. I have 5 cars to drive but I work at home and there's just not that much opportunity to rack up the miles on any of the cars. In 4 years I've managed to put only about 2500 miles on the Ferrari, driving it whenever I have the chance. I also have a '67 Pontiac GTO that has only accumulated 1800 miles in the last 5-1/2 years. Over the last 2 years my "daily driver" BMW has only been driven 5800 miles.

 

Most of those 308s and 328s have had their clocks rocked, and their owners don't even know it, or secretly suspect it and are lying to themselves. The majority of 1980s Ferraris for sale have perpetually had around 30k miles since the late 1980s.

And yes, still, Ferraris have only a fraction of the mileage that Porsches have. Why?

- because owners of Ferraris fawn over their cars and waste money on expensive rebranded "upscale" detailing products, but are afraid to drive them

- because many "lower" priced Ferraris (308s, etc.) have been owned for the past 10-15 years by people who can afford to buy them but can't afford or can't stomach the $3k-$5k for a major service. So they are afraid to drive them. See point above about fawning over cars in their garage.

- because despite how durable and race-bred Ferraris truly are, people have this idea in their head that exotic cars are always breaking, "always in the shop," and "parts are expensive/impossible to get" . . . so they are afraid to drive them. Se first point above.
(yes, parts for Ferraris are expensive, but not disproportionate to the price of the car if you buy from one of the vendors who aren't rip-off artists)

- because many owners are a bunch of pansies who are afraid of getting a stone chip. I'm not talking concours enthusiasts who are serious contenders for a preservation award; I'm talking about your typical middle management spoke or business owner who isn't a true gearhead and just wants to have a Ferrari in his garage, and all he knows about the car is what's right in front of his eyes.

- because Ferraris are indeed expensive to maintain, and a special occasion to drive, and whereas a Porsche or Corvette is utilitarian and "mundane" (poor choice of words) enough to drive daily, many people like to just use their Ferraris for weekends and other enthusiast moments

- because many Ferraris give you a headache if you drive them a lot -- a 308, for example, is a loud car and may require a Tylenol or two for some people during or after a long day of driving. To do it every day would be fatiguing. Great car to blast around in for fun/weekends/go to restaurant/occasional trip/race track/rally/special event . . . but not every day.

So yes, Ferraris do tend to have lower mileage than less expensive sports cars (such as Porsches), but not as low as some of the odometers suggest.


Also, there is a loose correlation among cars between mileage, rarity, and quality. The more common the car, the more likely it has higher mileage, and the more likely it is of better quality. Let's take, for example, 25-35 year old examples of Porsche vs. Ferrari vs. Lamborghini:

- The Porsche probably has about 150k-200k miles on it (probably had it's clock rocked back in the day, too). Whatever model of Porsche it is, there were in the ballpark of, let's say, 100,000 produced. And it is by far the best quality car of the three.

- The Ferrari probably has about 40k-75k miles on it (odometer between 26k-50k). There were about 1/10th as many made as the Porsche (probably in the ballpark of 10k made compared to the Porsche's 100k ballpark). And while it's not engineered and built for the apocalypse like the Porsche is, it is very well-crafted and of high quality, especially for a hand-finished car. There are some very sturdy pieces on it; and things most owners have no conception of (the lubrication system, for example) are engineered for serious duty. On the other hand, it's rust-prone, high maintenance, has some ridiculously fragile little bits, and let's water into weird places when it rains. Better keep it indoors and out of the hands of the uninitiated.

- Now the Lamborghini . . . probably truly doesn't have more than 30k miles on it. That 5k or 10k on the odometer is probably true. Ballpark production was probably 1/10 of the Ferrari and 1/100 of the Porsche (i.e. in the ballpark of 1000 made, comparatively speaking). And quality-wise, it's a piece of ****. It will probably permanently burn or warp some part of itself on a long trip that the Porsche would shrug off and the Ferrari would only develop a minor electrical or catalyst overheat problem. And in a hot city traffic jam, it would probably catch fire whereas the Ferrari would only overheat and the Porsche would just shrug it off.

One could probably also add practicality and ease of maintenance in line with this comparison of mileage, rarity, and quality. And one could probably add "sense of occasion" and "price" to the comparison, only in inverse order to the others.

So there you have it. The reasons why Ferraris have low(er) mileage. Now some people on this board who always have to top/beat/counter/disagree with assertions others make in order to assert themselves (i.e. many or most people on this board) are probably just itching and burning to quote something from this and use an anecdotal example to prove me wrong and that they are right and therefore better (assuming, of course, that they have the attention span to read this far), but to them and all I say, relax -- if you do not have the reading comprehension skills to recognize subtlety and humor, and if the smiley at the top wasn't enough of a hint to soothe your competitive or combative nature, please understand that this post is written with a bit of sarcasm and is but a friendly jab . . . but of course, in all humor and sarcasm lies a grain of truth.

 

I think the others above have covered everything. There was also this fever in the "collectible crazy era" of the late '90s and early part of this millenium that allowed people to buy Ferraris, drive them for a year or two and get all or most of their money back (sometimes more) on trade-ups, so long as they didn't put too many miles on them. You can't do that anymore, but there are still plenty of cars around where people were trying to do that, so purposely kept from driving their cars much. I suppose that strategy could make sense to some so long as that strategy could work, but nowadays it's just ridiculous not to drive what will clearly depreciate whether you put few or a moderate number of miles on the car. Of course, like any car, very high mileage cars will depreciate more, but I'd guess on a per-mile basis, those guys are ahead.

I couldn't help but remember from this discussion a Top Gear episode where the three guys bought old exotics for under 10,000 Pounds Sterling, then had to drive them 50 miles. None of the three cars made it. They were, as I recall, a Ferrari 308 GT4, a Lamborghini Urraco and Maserati Merak (the Merak even threw a rod and blasted out bits from the crankcase). I also recall talking with a factory mechanic for Lamborghini a few years back (talking about Countaches and Murcielagos (pre-Gallardo/Audi cars)) advising me to buy a Ferrari because Lamborghinis were so unreliable!

As for odometer clocking, this means disconnecting the odometer so that it does not record added miles, right (which I believe is a federal offense, btw)? I take it that's not possible with later-era cars with electronic odometers tied to the ECUs? So for example, the 360 I bought used really has the indicated number of miles?

 

Getting a 360 to not log miles literally takes less than 15 minutes.

I've also seen odometers swapped out, as long as they don't conflict with the latest reported mileage on carfax or any dealers service records, no one is of the wiser.

When you purchase a used Ferrari, one should always take into account the condition of the car, not just the miles. View the typical wear and tear items and make sure they correlate with the amount of miles on the car.

 

In most F cases low mileage is the key to maintaining value. It's too bad but if you decide to buck the trend it'll probably cost you later as when it comes time to sell few will not care about mileage unless it's reflected in a lower price

 

My 1969 365GT has been very reliable. In fact, I would argue that the 65-69 cars (330 and 365) are probably the most reliable Ferraris made.

 

It's not reliability. It's maintenance cost. It's the cost per mile that people get scared of. The more you drive it, the more you need to spend on maintenance and repair.

Ferrari is working on the routine maintenance cost issue. The F430 takes less maintenance than the 360 because it doesn't have timing belts. The 360 needs less than the 355.

One of the reason people like the 308 is that it's the easiest to keep running of all the mid engine cars.

I talked to the dealer about this issue on the 458. The F430 needs 40 hours of paid maintenance over 5 years of ownership. The 458 needs only 12. Also, the 458 never needs a clutch replacement or any fluid or filter changes to the gearbox.

Now, if they could just work on the cost of the PARTS!

The other reason is the people just don't use them as daily drivers. They are "toys" and weekend cars. Maybe they don't like driving it every day because it's not comfortable enough, or maybe too expensive to keep running, maybe it's that they don't like the attention, and maybe it's just that they want to perserve the car and not put it through the punishment.

Whatever it is, I think it's more of an American mystique than European.

As to the guys who say you can just swap out Odometer's and that's why because it's so easy to do... well, that's IF you sell the car without any maintenance papers. I haven't seen a maintenance or repair order yet that didn't have the mileage stated on it. If you show a repair done with 30K miles and your ODO has only 12, it's a little hard to explain.

If you try to sell the car with no repair orders in the last several years, expect the potential buyer to be very suspicious.

 

It's not about swapping the ODOs.

If your car has 5,000 miles on it when you buy it, you DC the odo, drive the car for a year(put 5,000 miles on it). Reconnect the ODO, take it to your dealer and have maintenance done and as far as records show, the car has done a couple hundred miles over the last year when in reality the odo should show 10,000.

We PPI'd a 360 with less than 4,000 miles on it a couple of years ago that had the wear and tear of a 30,000 + mile car.

I'm not saying that every low mileage car has had the odo tampered with, but there are more cars out there with TMU (True Mileage Unknown) than most people imagine.

 

Yikes. Anyway, the condition of my car was/is well within what one would expect at the mileage indicated.

 

Does cheating exist? Sure. But it's small at least for cars with electronic odo's. The vast majority of low mileage cars is simply because they are... not driven much.

 

Wow, that means my wife must be worth a fortune.

 

Every time a nice condition old Ferrari rolls over 100K, an unscrupulous owner then has
30K more miles to drive before selling it for a great price. And never mind how bloody
easy it would be for someone to disconnect the sender on a 3x8 or other F-car.

Just rolled 70k myself... or who knows - maybe it's 170k... I don't really care cuz she
runs great and I never plan to sell.



Jedi

 

My condolences

 

Rampant odometer fraud?!

 

Perhaps you might try a nice Corolla, then?


To briefly answer your question, the following things are all more expensive than what the average American is used to:

- things produced in low quantities
- things produced that are new and leading edge technology (research and development costs, new manufacturing methods, etc. ...)
- things produced that are of a higher degree of precision
- things produced that are heavy duty, for serious use
- things produced that have many hours of racing and testing added to the above
- things produced in Italy (economic factors)
- things produced in a beautiful, fresh, modern factory where worker health and environment are taken into consideration
- things produced by a company that needs to cover their F1 racing costs (lol)

Add to that the exclusivity of the product and how it works on the law of supply and demand, and the price goes up.

And regarding the actual labor of the service, the following things make it more expensive than the corner muffler shop:

- specialized training to handle the unique and precision parts that go into it
- ongoing training to keep up with the changes
- insurance to cover the much more expensive catastrophes that can happen
- a higher labor rate to pay more skilled, conscientious, intelligent technicians than your average pothead dropout
- a clean and pleasant environment that is conducive to excellent work and that customers will find pallatable
- fulfilling the expectations of customers who are more demanding and detail-oriented than your average grandpa with a Buick


I'm sure I'm leaving plenty of things out, but these kinds of things add up to costing more.

For someone who can't see the difference between a Nissan 350Z and a Ferrari 360 . . . better get the Nissan. My experience comparing less expensive Japanese sports/luxury cars to the European cars they are aiming for is that you get what you pay for; the Japanese cars usually feel weaker, flimsier, cheaper, and more like they were engineered to meet some magazine test target (such as 0-60, briefly touching a top speed, or a Nurburgring lap), and otherwise just be excellent at carting you to and from work; while the European cars (Porsche, Ferrari, etc.) feel like they are engineered to run all day in high speeds speeds and strenuous conditions, and do it again tomorrow and the next day. Then of course there is the quality and detailing found in the body and interior; put a new Ferrari and a new Nissan (or whatever) side by side -- there is no comparison.

The details add up, and as with many things, to go from very good to the best, the increase in effort (read: cost) is greater than the increase in the finished product. Some people want the very best, and are willing to pay extra for it. It's not for everyone, and less expensive cars have their merits and value, too.

 

Well said TK, as was your previous post in this thread.
MB