Would You Buy One with 53,823 Miles?

It's done.

Money in hand, heading there Saturday. One question, though.

I've always heard of "stress cracks" where the roof meets the rear fenders. The salesman called me about an hour ago to tell me it has that on one side.

Is this an issue that needs resolving..... like welding or something? Car isn't going to "split" is it? I never had this issue with my F355 GTS, and of course not the Spider.

Thanks!

 

I intend to have one done. However, out of the Ferraris I've owned two have been F355s, so I do have some decent knowledge of them... what to look for and how they should run. I'm not actually bringing the car home this Saturday. I'm heading up to look it over for the things I've had go wrong on my previous 355s. If I'm comfortable, I'll request that Abacus Racing do a suspension inspection and compression test... unless I drive it and it just flat our runs how I know it should run. I'm going with funds-in-hand so that they know I'm serious. Once I get it home, I plan to have the major done regardless of what service it may have already had.... just so that "I" know when and what was done.

 

OK, she needs a little TLC.

Recognized Cosmetic issues:

The windshield has a crack completely across it... A-pillar to A-pillar.

The paint is swirled pretty bad and gives it a pale, milky yellow look, easily remedied.

Interior is sticky beyond any f-car I've owned, but sticky was expected.

Dash shrinkage is worse I've seen compared to F355s I've owned, but shrinkage was expected.

Exhaust hardware is all severely rusted, none of my previous F355s had this issue.

Engine bay plastics are severely faded, again something I'm not used to.

Conclusion.... It's obvious this car was NOT garage kept at all, at least not by the last owner.


Recognized Mechanical issues:

Stock headers are blown to heck, but blown was expected.

Noticed all fuel lines at the fuel block between the engine and firewall were of the braided steel type except for one which was a rubber fuel line. This threw me off because my previous F355s each had all braided steel lines here. Anyone know what this is about?

Suspension warning indicator constant; quick, successful remedies on my past F355s were not successful here. Pulled off the actuators to see if they initialized when switched to power... they do. Suspension warning indicator still on. Switching the sport switch gives sport indication in the cluster, but does not rotate the actuators. Any suggestions here? Could this be a blown Shock ECU.... a bad sport switch?

Rear right shock leaking on the top-side, causing dirty, oily, grimy actuator; expected to have shocks rebuilt. Can you guys refer me to where you have shocks rebuilt?

Driver's exterior door handle is ready to snap; expected to replace with Hill Engineering part.

Passenger-side window needs some adjustment on the track.

Driver-side window has the typical "thud" that I'm used to when bottomed out.

Missing tool-kit and tow hook (a Ferrari don't-leave-home-without item)



Positives:

The car idles very smoothly. Sounds like what I'm used to.

The car drives nicely and runs very strong.... like how I'm used to F355s running.

I now have the service records dated back to 2004. I find that amazing!! Records indicate approximately $8,000 worth of "unexpected" work over the course of 10 years, not bad I think. The last 7 years also covered THREE majors performed, the most recent by Abacus Racing in 2012 and 10,000 miles ago.

CAT ECUs are of the green epoxy type.

Catalytic converters are replaced with an unknown, high-flow converter. They look like Larini or Fabspeed.

I let the car idle for THIRTY minutes to see if slow-down indicators would flash (had that problem in the past). No issue.

Fans worked properly and coolant temps were maintained at the half-way point (I've had issues with temps rising beyond half-way at idle).

Oil temps and oil pressure were great.

No leaks where the shift-rod enters the gearbox.

I took my OBDII scanner and checked for codes and pending codes before starting the car. Again after idling for 30 minutes, then again after a 30 minutes hard... spirited drive. No Codes pending or active.

Oil was low but I'd taken oil with me. 1qt topped it up. Oil was very clean.

All lighting worked.

Gearbox shifty extremely well, something I was NOT expecting as my F355 GTS was a b*tch to get into second and always scraped into 3rd.


Overall, I'm impressed with the car for the price. My only REAL concern is why the suspension indicator is on, for the actuators all initialize when removed from the shocks when key-power is applied, but do NOT rotate when using the sport switch. I'm starting to wonder if those switches have been removed once and now the wrong switch is in the sport switch position. I had a similar issue with my GTS when the passenger window wouldn't go up using the passenger side window switch, and the door locking switch wouldn't lock the doors. Turned out when the switches were refinished, they'd been put back in the wrong positions.

I left more money with them and showed them the rest of the money to let them know I'm serious. I'm scheduling for Abacus to do a compression test as soon as they can next week. Once those results are back, I'll post here for advice as to whether I'm in good shape. If the compression test looks good, I'll pay the balance and have the car trucked to me.

 

No, no... don't get me wrong. I'm not an overly critical person... however the paint is not great in person... you can see the huge difference between the paint in the jambs vs the exterior. It was definitely an out-side car and was continuously exposed to the elements. That's not a big deal, as the paint isn't a concern and will be easily corrected. I'll post pictures later today of when I had paint correction performed on my Rosso Fiorano GTS. As a matter of Fact, I believe I have a thread on here somewhere already with the photos, so I'll provide a link to that thread.

The leather is in great condition everyplace other than the dash, of course. The seat bottoms are harder than my others, but nothing Leatherique Rejuvenator won't fix.

Any suggestions on some to the mechanicals I mentioned?