"Ideal" Ferrari mileage

There is certainly a schism between entusiasts, whose primary concern is a good running car that has been well maintained, and collectors, who seem to focus mainly on low miles.

The conflict is obvious.

I wonder whether a "happy medium" exists; is there a possible consensus from both camps as to "ideal" mileage / use?

Stated differently: What yearly odometer change would reflect both sufficient use to avoid GQ gremlins, yet be low enough to be desirable to a collector / investor / flipper?

 

I'd probably divide the second group in half. Investors and flippers want minus miles where collectors want to keep mileage low but realize the need to drive the cars on a fairly regular basis to keep everything in working order. Even if those miles are just enough to wam everything up to operating temperatures.

 

Ideal mileage: 25 miles. It's soo young that the magic still pulses in your veins but not enough to realize you can't park it anywhere.

 

I would say somewhere between 25-35K miles would be the sweet spot.

 

Depends on the car - as in model and year.

30k on a two year old 458 will get you a fire sale price.

30k on a 14 year old 360 will be considered reasonable.

30k on an early 70's Dino or a GT4 just raises suspicions.

30k on a 250 SWB, who gives a crap.

 

Well said.

 

I thought it was half your age plus 7 ;-)

 

Fixed it.

 

It is not the miles themselves, it is how the miles transpired!

30K interstate miles at the speed limit is a lot easier on the car than 3K miles on the race track!

 

That is pretty much it.. On a vintage ferrari the mileage doesn't even come into discussion i.e. its just not a factor .. yet on the newer car the mileage is much more a factor.....

 

Sorry I was eluding to a 20-30 year old car but I would think maybe 2000 to 4000 miles per year would fit even later models.

 

Driven but not abused-and unfortunately hard driving any of these cars during spans of skipped or no maintenance creates the biggest mess!

 

Haha, wrong circumstances. Just learned about this one and realized I've broken the rule!

 

I would say no.

Maybe we could all agree on a car that was stored properly with 0 miles put on it until 3 years ago at which point it was fully gone through and driven 2000 trouble free miles for 3 years in a row. Now we have a perfectly reliable car with 6000 miles on it that everyone will want, I just can't afford.

 

14k miles...that's what I have on mine.

 

about 10k miles a year sounds good to me.

That means I need to put a few hundred more miles on my 360, excuse me while I go for a drive in the rain

Its not just the number of miles but how often. Lets say you come up the 4,000 miles a year as a good number, so now is it 333.333333 miles a month, or is it 4,000 miles in one month. I would venture to say that 4,000 miles in one month is just as bad as not driven at all, seals and bearings and who knows what else got dry during the other 11 months. You have NO idea how the car was driven in its past history, so don't about mileage and worry about current condition and drive the dammed thing.

It really is raining and I really am going for a drive. My motorcycle dealer is about 80 miles away. Wife and I are going to take it the 360 the long way to my motorcycle dealer and pick up my motorcycle, she will drive the 360 back.

 

This question could only be successfully answered if all humans were identical clones of each other. This subject is a matter of opinion for each individual. One person may be happy with a car driven regularly versus another who would only deign to purchase a car with delivery miles and a a history of being stored in a sealed container. In short there is no 'happy medium' just a wide variety of opinions

 

Perfect milage depends on age of the car and how the miles were incrementally driven.

If records are available - CARFAX, service, or other - the ideal would be 1,500 to 2,000 miles per year. And that would be 30-40 miles every week.

30-40 miles a week - each and every week - is ideal for keeping the car healthy and happy while not piling on mega-miles.

 

30 - 40 miles a week? You must be joking. Who would limit themselves like that? Good lord. That is (like what is said around here) similar to having a supermodel wife but only sleeping with her once a month.

Not for me people.

Live man live!

 

What he said.

The mileage paranoia is part of what drove me to classic/vintage. If I were buying modern (348 and newer), I'd get one with enough mileage so that the first owner had already taken the primary depreciation hit.

 

Bingo.

What's even worse with this idiotic idea is that if you drive a new 458 across the country, it probably lose 10,000 in value than if you didn't. Guess what you say to yourself if you are thinking of doing that?

Then, what's the point?

 

Depends on how old the car is. For example, when I look at Boxer ads, I don't pay any attention to mileage.

When I've looked at 355s and newer, they need to be less than 20k.

 

Nobody cares how many miles are on a 250GTO, 250LM, or Testa Rossa

 

57,000 - 70,000 on a 3X8 just looks nice to me

 

This my friend is a ludicrous comparison. You are comparing apples to oceans.

Of course...mileage isn't much important for these vintage-classic cars because they have already been restored several times in their lifetimes - figure at a cost of about $200,000 each. And the engines in these cars have probably already been rebuilt 5 times - current cost about $30,000 + per rebuild.

What is important with these vintage cars is their current condition, and the current condition of their engines. How many miles on the last rebuild? who did it? How much was replaced? Rust in the chassis? Missing parts/components?

Even if one of these needs the full - $200K - monte, well that is a small amount compared to the $10+ million they are worth.

BUT - It just isn't economically feasible to restore a newer Ferrari, and very iffy to even rebuild its engine. So, buyers want a car that is in almost new condition with low miles.

Now, if you can afford to drive them till they drop (and need costly repairs) and so they are worthless and impossible to sell - more power to you. You have more $ than me. Congratulations.

And by the way - for the guy with the supermodel analogy - how wonderful is she when she turns 80? Or even if she screws the entire Raven's football team?

bottom line - Cars get old. They get old faster if you drive them a lot. 15K miles a year wears out a car faster than 2K miles a year. The mechanicals wear faster, but the extra miles also mean more chips in the paint, more wear in the interior, etc. Other factor are also important, but mileage was the topic of discussion here.