Is an FF reliable enough to be a DD?

I have had my FF for a little less than 2 years. I love the way the car drives, and doubt any other car could fullfill the DD role while providing such a thrill every time it is driven. However, given my experience, I am about to conclude that the FF as a car, and Ferrari's approach to repairing these cars, is not consistent with using it is a daily driver.

In the less than two years I have had the car, it has been at the Ferrari dealer service department a total of nearly 3 months, spread out over several separate instances. Numerous things have gone wrong, some major and some minor. In many cases, the approach mandated by the factory to diagnosing and attempting to repair the problem seemed to ignore any attempt to get it back to me somewhat quickly. In other cases, parts needed to come from Italy, often one at a time, sometimes taking a week or more to arrive while my car sat in the shop.

I have my other exotics for fun/weekend use. Having one of them down for a while is frustrating, but I knew going in that it would happen and can accept that. However, Ferrari has sold the FF as a daily driver while, based on my experience, not building in the necessary mechanical reliability or putting in place effective repair processes to support DD use.

What experience have others had who use their FF as a daily driver? If this situation is a rare event, and I am just the unlucky one it happened to, I would like to know that. I am about to decide to get rid of the FF and replace it with a Porsche Pannamera, Mercedes AMG, BMW M5, or something similar as a daily driver. I know none of these would come close to the excitement of the FF, but at least those manufacturers are able to keep their cars running reliably enough to use as DDs.

 

About a month repair for transmission and a few weeks to do rattle job and oil change and waht not.
Covered 25000kms and it is my 2nd FF. First one lasted 15000kms.
It depends also on how your driving condition is. Mine does most highway.
It is not a true daily driver. I use it 3 or 4 days a week.
Panamera....sorry but it is as bad as it can get. Cayenne is much better choice.
63 amgs....forget high speed cornering...rattles...less comfort. Dont know about s63.
M3 or 4....unless you track the car...M5 nobtrack car...slow...speaker exhaust sound.

Just buy rolls ghost. It only can match FF drive quality. And none of other cars can match excitement of FF.

 

I agree nothing else will match the driving dynamics of the FF - that is why I am struggling with this so much.

Don't care if my DD is good at the track (I have a good track car), so would consider the M5. I had forgotten about the exhaust sound coming from the speakers - that pretty much kills that idea for me. I do want it to be exciting to drive. Rolls just isn't my style.

I love to drive performance oriented cars, and want a DD that allows me to enjoy my daily driving while I do the otherwise boring daily stuff. The FF gives me that excitement. Unfortuneately not on a regular, reliable basis.

 

I am following FF section for quite some time, and for most owners here FF proved itself as very reliable DD.

If I read your post well, your car had some issues, but main problem was poor service from dealer to fix your car as soon as possible.

 

Have had the FF for 3 months (3,000 KM) ... only one problem related to driving it in -20C temperature but other than that it has been no problems.. I drive it almost every day.

I have had more service issues with my BMW550ix than the FF ..

have not used the FF long enough to provide the endorsement you are looking for but I do agree that it is a fabulous car to drive every day and as such my BMW hasn't moved much since acquiring the FF ..

 

Piling on....

Our 2012 FF, 6K miles, was bulletproof. Only unplanned shop visit was due to a broken windshield....which happened at the dealer! (it happens, they were great about it).

The FF is a complex car and has a lot of net-new technology, so I can imagine a complex fault might be aggravatingly long to fix. Our dealer has sold a lot of FF's, and the techs know the cars well now. I can imagine if a dealer sees an FF infrequently, that may make the experience more challenging.

We don't drive it every day, but we would if we could. Sounds like you've had a good car with a couple really, really bad service experiences. If you like the car, keep it.

OR - trade it in on a 2015. FNA and FFS are making some deals right now on FF's, we just traded our 2012 in (it was that, or spend $ on extended warranty). We love the car and plan to use it more the next time around.

As for other options - agree, Cayenne Turbo S would be next option. MB, BMW....meh. Panamera is a nice version of the "S-Class" land yacht.

 

If you are considering other "everyday exotics", do yourself a favor and test drive a Mercedes CLS63 AMG 4-Matic. I've owned one as a DD for a year, and can say that it is one of the finest all-around performance cars in the world. Period. ZERO malfunctions, mind-blowing performance, top-flight technology and constant excitement. In fact, it ranks close to my Maranello for sheer driving excitement. Stunning styling and intoxicating exhaust note are icing on the cake. It is also more rare than many other AMGs so you still enjoy some exclusivity.

I have driven the CLS63 on the street and track -- the notion that they rattle and can't handle high-speed cornering could not be further from the truth. It may not be an FF, but 3.4 sec to 60 and unbreakable grip combined with bulletproof reliability are appealing DD attributes.

 

While only owning mine for 3k miles in the past two months I have not had one issue. It is driven daily and not slowly. Absoltely love mine for DD. Hope my luck continues.

 

Actually, a lot of issues, and many days different ones. It's hard to disentangle how much of the slowness of repair is due to my dealer and how much is due to the factory controlling the repair process. It seems likely due to both, but it seems substantially due to the factory. I think my dealer is actually pretty decent.

 

I love the way the car drives. I just need more reliability. If I happen to have gotten an unusually bad one, I would consider trading it on another. I just don't want to get into the same situation again.

 

I hope yours continues strong.

 

Something I will consider, thanks.

 

Thank you. Bldscud I am sorry to hear about your experience. Reading thru your post I do see that you get what a great drivers car the FF is. I too have owned many but the joy the FF gives is second to none IMO

Wishing you better luck

 

I had a Bentley GT and a Merc S63 AMG. Both amazing DD but the Bentley has all wheel drive

 

Thanks.

 

While a very different car, the Bently GT does have appeal.

 

When you say your first one lasted 15,000kms, what do you mean? Had it reached the end of it's useful life? Were there serious unfixable issues?

 

I can sort of concur with what you're experiencing/feeling. I don't think it’s about the dealerships so much as the mother ship. For most basic work the dealers can and do get the cars turned around quickly and all is well. I've had several dealerships around the US work on my car at times in our travels, and have nothing but great experiences with the teams at the different service departments.

It’s when something outside the realm of the expected happens that the system starts to bog down. And my impression is its mostly because the factory is too small, parts and resources too few, and issues often never experienced before. The quantity of cars Ferrari produces in a year, GM/Nissan/Toyota/other DD mfgs do in less than a day. So things are just not going to happen quickly. It’s not hard to imagine for instance, that if you needed brake discs, there are none in stock anywhere in the US, so the call goes back to the factory, which then calls the actual manufacturer of the discs, etc.

I've always thought the best recourse was to have two Italian cars, so while one is being serviced, you can use the other. Like Rick, get a CA, and use it when the FF is down. I have an Alfa, and it makes me happy when our FF is out of action and I want an exotic fix. Most of the time, we have the FF to play with, but we also know that there are going to be times when its unavailable, so we go to our backup toys. I expect most of us who have and love our FFs also have another toy to go to when the FF is down. I'd never recommend it as one's sole car unless you like to rent cars occasionally.

So maybe calling the FF daily driver is a stretch, and ought to be couched with the caveat that it is after all a very low production volume complex mechanical beast that can experience issues and has limited resources for repair when needed. Compared to my first Ferrari 17 years ago (95 456GT), the FF is a modern marvel. For get-in-and-forget-about-it mindless commuting and grocery getting, my Scion beats it handily. But I'll never lust to drive my Scion.

 

Have had mine over 6 months. Zero issues. Not a true DD tho. More like 3 times a week.... About 3k mi in that time.

SV

 

Have you considered a new Maserati Quattroporte. Works great as a daily driver, and family car.

 

Do you need a 4 doors? A 991 gts is probably hard to beat for fun/value/ reliability/ usability.

 

Some cars are just Lemons. The FF overall seems ok from owner comments but perhaps your particular car is a dud. I had this issues with a Cayenne turbo. I bought another one same model and year that was way better. I saw 'my' lemon years later at the service department and the tech said it was a real problem car.

 

Had my first FF for just under 3 years with zero issues. The car was collected by the dealer for servicing and delivered back the following day. It was my DD. No heavy mileage like Rick, but 7-8K miles per year in all weathers and treated like any other car, not mollycoddled. Either I'm lucky, or you're unlucky, not sure which!? I'm now on to my second FF, so I'll let you know in another 3 years! As you already know, nothing compares to an FF. I'd try another if I were you!

 

A local has an FF with 32k miles on it. I know it has been in the shop for gearbox failure and various other things.

 

I totally agree with your thoughts about dealers vs. the factory.

I do have other exotics. However, those are intended totally as fun cars. I use the FF as an every day car that also gives me unbelievable excitement. Unfortuneately, it has not been as everyday as I had thought/hoped if would.

I am starting to conclude that I was being too hopeful about getting both the performance and the level of reliability I want in my daily car. I'm probably going to have to choose which of those two is most important, and sacrifice some of the other.