Getrag DCT problems, a/c causes condensation on windshield

I recently bought a 2010 Cali with 8,000 miles on it. But the transmission is a nightmare. It's fine on the open road but in stop and go city traffic it lurches, searches for gears, and the engine surges . Can they be reprogrammed? Was there a problem with these transmissions or is this just mine and what is the solution? I have the extended warranty for another 4 months and need to figure this out.
Also, the defroster vents allow small amounts of cold a/c air to get on the windshield and cause condensation , especially in high humidity. The dealer said the famous "they all do that", sounds like bs is to me. Anyone else had this problem?
Thanks

 

The dealer should be able to download the error codes for the DCT.

I would document everything before your warranty runs out. If they replace your DCT, the part will have a warranty which will outlast your ' extended warranty' and Ferrari will be responsible if the DCT fails again.

 

Check the air conditioner evaporator drain tube/hose to see if it is clogged. Will be somewhere below the evaporator.

Have the fluids changed on the DCT and clutch pack and see if that helps. Should be done every 5 years if driven normally, and every 2 years if she sits a lot. Ferrari service centers now have DCT tools for maintenance, so it is not necessary to swap out a malfunctioning DCT like it was when they were first introduced.

 

A couple additional thoughts...

"Generally speaking", the DCT gearboxes will show a fault code if any parameter is off or if a sensor is having a bad day. Some early DCT's had issues (electrical/wiring), but the failure mode was most often for them to get stuck in even or odd gears; you'd also have plenty of alarm lights. A dealer can download and review the actual operating parameters, it's a relatively complex electro-hydraulic-mechanical device.

Are you driving in Auto, or Manual? What Mannetino settings? If the engine is hunting for gears, I'd assume auto. "Lurches" from a start can be how the gearbox engages, it can be noticeable when pulling away with a delicate throttle application. Are the "surges" consistent with slowing down (downshifting?). Some of this might be normal (just new to you), the gearbox will behave differently depending on which map (Mannetino position) you've selected. It's hard to get a sense from what you're describing.

As for the windshield condensation, when you (re)start the car, the HVAC system defaults to Automatic for air distribution, which puts some air (A/C if you have it on) out thru all/most of the vents. If it's hot/humid outside and you have the A/C cranked up, you''re likely to get spots of condensation outside. This occurs/occurred on our 458, FF, F12, Speciale... a way around it is to manually direct the airflow using the control knobs (once you adjust them, they come out of Auto distribution mode). Try that, it works for us.

On the gearbox, again, hard to diagnose over the internet. If you drive in manual mode (i.e. you shift) and it still occurs, have the gearbox checked with the diagnostic tool to make sure its operating in spec. If there are any glitches, they can reflash the TCU.

 

This has occurred on almost every car I've owned while living in Florida & Texas--Maserati GranSport, 2 different Aston Martin Vantages, Merc G550, as well as my California. Humidity sucks.

 

I also have a 2010 and 8000 miles Cali. - same thing with gear box and surging at very low speed - It's part of the visceral experience I think - you grow to adapt to its somewhat jerkiness but it's always controllable. - no problem at all when u step on it


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I have the same issue with the AC, doesn't really bother me since the car is so good.

 

Wow, great responses, thanks for taking the time to respond. I'll print this out and check with the dealer.

 

Not sure how to evaluate the jerkiness. Perhaps a video? My transmission is flawless and not jerky at all. Compared to my Maserati gts with F1 it's silky smooth and seamless.

Not sure that I would ascribe what your experiencing as normal.

Scotts

 

As you have a '10 Cali with a pretty old battery, you might want to take a look at this thread.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/458-italia-488/515040-easy-fix-abrupt-shifting-458-dct.html

 

I also recently purchased a 2010 California from a private party (8600 miles). I have had the DCT fault light come on when I was in Sport mode and it temporarily would only shift in the odd gears. The shifting quickly resumed back to normal on its own. I used my OBD scanner and found a P1902 (pending) trouble code. The car was shifting fine so I cleared the pending code and drove it for a while. It was fine until I got aggressive in Sport mode again and the DCT light came on again. This time when I scanned it, there were no faults but the light was on. After switching off the car and turning it on again, the DCT light was no longer on. I took it to Ferrari of Silicon Valley and gave them the code (of course I had deleted it, so that probably didn't help them). They performed a full service on the car and didn't find any evidence of a problem and they said they had the tech drive it aggressively to try and reproduce the error. They gave me the car back and said it was in great shape. I asked about the battery and if it could be responsible for low voltage errors and they said the battery tested fine. I took the car home and within a few hours of driving, I got the DCT warning light again, twice. Each one was a pending code and not a trouble code (not sure about the difference). Each time the error code was different (P1905 and P1906) with the same temporary symptom of odd gears only. This was a very long story to ask if anyone else has had this particular set of error codes, knows what those codes are, and has anyone had success with just replacing the battery? Thanks in advance!

 

From another post I recall that the 1905 is an intermittent electrical fault in a solenoid in the DCT. From the post I read it in they never said if it was the DCT failure or not.

While this doesn't help you now, this is the second 2010 someone recently bought in a week or so to have a DCT issue. I'm utterly convinced now if you buy a California a new power warranty should be the second item you buy after correcting any issues the inspection finds. At this point I'm just figuring the price of the power warranty into the price of whatever I decide to buy. It certainly would be better then paying 40-50 k down on a car and then turning around and having to plunk down another 7k+ plus what ever your payment winds up being.

I'm starting to think DCT suck.........

 

Thanks for the reply and info on one of the codes. I have also noticed that there are a few people on here that have had issues with the DCT on both the 458 and the California. It also seems to be the earlier ones, which is consistent with what I've read, that Ferrari (or Getrag) resolved most of these issues on the later models. That doesn't help us but I still believe these gearboxes are impressibly fast and fun to use. I'm sure my tune might change if I'm told I need a new gearbox. I'll wait to see if anyone knows the other fault code descriptions or has had any success in diagnosing similar issues but I'd be happy if it was all associated to a weak battery!

 

I too just bought a new Cali (8,800 miles). Also from a private party. So far no problems with my DCT (knock on wood). These DCT are vastly superior to the single clutch ones. They are not an automatic transmission. If you want a true automatic, buy a Ferrari 456M.

I use to be a reliability engineer for Lockheed Martin and I was a Wall Street quant for almost 15 years. It makes no financial sense nor statistical sense to spend $4,500 on a New Power Warranty to cover a $7,000 repair that you may or may not ever need. It only makes sense if the DCT has a greater than 65% failure rate and no way it’s that high.

If one is that worried about it, you are better off just spending the $7,000 on a preventive replacement of the DCT sensor. This is a vastly superior outcome than buying the New Power Warranty and having it fail years after the warranty expires. The best strategy (since the 4.3 V8 is fairly reliable), is to keep the $4,500 meant for the warranty in reserve and just self-insure.

After looking at the Cali, Cali T and FF for months, I decided what I really wanted was a GTC4Lusso V12, but I did not want to eat the initial depreciation (on principle). I bought this Cali to enjoy and get a taste of Ferrari ownership until the Lusso falls below $200,000 on the used market. That day is certain to come and I may or may not still keep this Cali (which is in awesome, almost brand new shape) then. My only complaint for my Cali so far is the handling just isn’t as good as my 911 and the panel gap in the fuel door is just embarrassing. I ordered the carbon fiber fuel door to try to disguise this gap.

 

Finally someone has put it in perspective. Great advice. Overall the California has shown to be very reliable for an exotic supercar. In the end though it’s a car and things are going to break and need maintenance. Fixing a Ferrari is expensive in part because there just aren’t a lot of places to have the work done. There are only 40 authorized Ferrari dealers in North America, just over 200 worldwide.

I find it interesting that the main poster on this thread and many others doesn’t even own a Ferrari. Doing research is great. Talking yourself out of buying a car you can’t afford to take the hit on if something breaks is probably a smart move. Opining that all California’s must be purchased with a warranty is just foolish.

 

The catch to your plan is what if the repair isnt 7k? A certified Ferrari mechanic has already recently said in another post that the repairs could be 17k+ and that "several cars a month are in the shop with DCT issues". I dont deny that the California and 458 are a huge leap from its earlier predecessors. Having rented a Cali T on numerous occasions they are pure joy to drive. Even my Wife loved the experience which is a tall order. Add to the mix that the issue is not just "early cars" but has been reported on 13-14 Cali 30's as well its confirmed to plague the entire naturally aspirated line. I suspect that the Cali t will have issues too if they havent already judging from the issues Getrag DCT in other vehicles and ford abandoning the joint built Getrag DCT and closing the mexican manufacturing plant.

I made a mistake in how I posted my comments about the purchase of the new power warranty. I meant that people new to Ferrari in general should either purchase CPO which automatically comes with 1 year new power and scheduled maintenance, or should purchase the new power warranty after having the car inspected and correcting issues found. The reason why is there seems to have been a rash of cars recently bought from independent dealers that quite rapidly have the DCT failure.

Your comment about not being able to afford the repairs is ridiculous, while i cannot afford one of these cars new I most certainly can afford one at 120k and down. And of course you realize these cars are rapidly falling in price? (I have been tracking California prices since last January) There is one that is $74999.00 right now, granted with high miles, and a CPO under 100k ask. These cars will continue to fall for the next few years and more self employed individuals such as myself will start buying these things. And im sure many wont know anything about the DCT failure. Obviously if you can afford to purchase the car outright you can afford to pay for the repairs however those of us that cant (personally i can only afford to put 50k down) wind up financing a portion of the car. After a hefty down payment having a 100k car have a catastrophic transmission failure before you even make your first payment would sure **** me off, and the failure isnt your fault to boot.

Now before you blast me that I shouldnt buy a Ferrari this issue will be rearing its head more and more as the DCT Ford Focus and Feista warranty's expire and more and more are scooped up used, buy guess who, people that make way less then nearly all of us and the repair bills are close to the came or more. While a 7k repair would peeve me off I could take the hit, happens all the time with my equipment but for the person that would buy a used feista or focus? Probably not. But these failures arent operator related, they are due to inferior components used inside a sealed transmission that overheat when the transmission is operating under normal design conditions and to add insult to injury it appears when the repair is done they dont even use improved components. So this is where a new Ferrari Owner purchasing a new power warranty would be a "really good" Idea and in my opinion should be the second thing you do after buying your first Ferrari if it isnt already CPO.

 

Here’s the thing from a reliability engineering perspective. Probably the last thing you need to worry about with that red Cali with 76,000 miles, 3 owners, fleet history, very few options and no back seat in Georgia is the DCT breaking. It is way past the infant mortality phase for that transmission. The DCT has either already been fixed or if it is one that has never been broken, it probably will never break (ever) and outlive the rest of the car. I still wouldn’t pay more than $60,000 to $65,000 for a California with that kind of mileage. You can find perfectly maintained 360 Spiders with 1/3rd the miles at that same price.

As for DCT repairs potentially costing much more than $7,000, why on earth would I pay more?? I can ship the broken car to any dealer that will fix it at that price for $1,000. If I want to pay $2,000 for transport, I can even get enclosed shipping.

 

Just quoting what a Ferrari mechanic posted about a week ago reguarding cost. As far as the ask on that 74k Cali I don't disagree with anything you said with the exception that there is nothing that says if the failed sensors were replaced that they won't in fact fail again which if they are replacing the faulty components with the exact same component logic would dictate as well as some owners experience that they can and in some cases will break again. Further more it was my mistake to not specify that it's a good idea for purchasers new to Ferrari to purchase the new power warranty. Other then the DCT issue you have the top sensor failures and the premature engine mount failures that can also cause issues with the DCT.

 

My dealer tells me the engine mounts can go as early as 2,000 miles. The crankshaft is an un-balanced, flat-plane crank after all. But that repair is “cheap” (< $2,000 at the dealer).

The DCT on that 76,000 Cali will never fail, unless you really believe the previous owners have been swapping them out at $7,000 a pop every 10,000 miles the last 5 years.

 

While I was not involved in the engineering or statistical analysis fields, I was trained as a medical researcher, so I did take a methodical approach to the issue of the DCT's reliability and potential costs of repair.

I used my car's original 3 years of warranty as a test period under conditions that I would expect it to perform for my long term ownership. I flushed out a couple of unrelated assembly/defective component issues during the first 2 years and the car was perfect afterwards. I'm now entering the 6th year. This is why people should be wary of used cars with extremely low mileage, unless they are collectors' items that are not meant to be driven. OTOH, if you owned a car from new and fixed all the "new car" issues, you could be throwing away all that hard work for nothing if you then dump your "sorted" car, mistakenly believing its break-in problems were proof that it's a bad car and will always have problems.

All cars have problems. If they are of an older well-tried design or of a simpler or less-aggressive design, other factors being equal, such cars will generally experience less problems as new cars. However, they will still require replacement of wear-and-tear items, which always turn up after a certain age or mileage.

DCT problems stem from possible reasons which include the following:

- aggressive performance design
- new product, first usage​

The first reason is why some people buy Ferraris. They want the cutting edge in performance, which by definition ALWAYS involves more risk and higher costs. The aggressive design will push technology to the established limits. It means 10/10ths. In marketing terms those people are usually known as "early adopters". Early adopters usually understand they are trading extra risks, in order to be the "first on the bloc to own one". However, as used car buyers for older cars, you would not be one of those people... but you are often assuming similar risks, especially if no one (properly) sorted out (broke-in) the particular cars you are shopping.

The second reason means the first owners end up being the guinea pigs as long term testers. Factories can only afford to test designs to limits of resources and time. They have to make some money out of their design efforts and cannot afford to test huge numbers for very long periods. It would cost too much and risk competitors stealing their designs and shipping cheap copies way before they put their own cars on the road. So, every new Ferrari design involves early adopters acting as long term testers. It's the same with every car maker.

As for your observations regarding the handling of the Cali, I had similar ones - the car was really only very fast in a straight line. It did not like taking fast corners or handling bad roads. Luckily, I had a Cali30 and was able to upgrade it to HS spec. Doing so completely transformed the car. The earlier Cali was designed to accommodate a broad spectrum of newcomers to the brand so the factory dialed out the steering and suspension but mostly preserved the aggressive nature of the engine and transmission.

I've been upgrading my Cali30 and I'm keeping it as there's nothing in the market that approaches what this car delivers. I have just upgraded the HS springs with even stiffer Novitec springs. According to the spring rates measured by my dealer, the new setup looks very promising.

 

Honestly I never actually looked at that car other then the information that is shown on the thumbnail. I'm more interested in the Cali 30 hopefully with the HS package. I only mention the 74 car because I'm sure some poor guy who is looking for something more the a corvette and when it has issues they will tell everyone that will listen how sh**** Ferraris are.

Also a car with some miles on it doesn't scare me. I've been looking at most cars that aren 25k miles plus since it appears that cars that are actually driven have fewer issues and are great cars to be driven more.

I don't claim to know everything about these cars, but I want to make my purchase with as much knowledge as I can, and to be honest since
I am a small business owner that doesn't have endless piles of cash I'd like to cover myself the best I can. So I'm highly considering a CPO purchase. And depends on how far the Cali t depreciates Over the next year I could be considering 15 model as well.

I'm not looking to get into an argument over my
opinion of Getrag and the quality of the replacement components they are offering Ferrari for repairs (please note I'm not blaming Ferrari for this issue and I never have). Honestly I think eventually better repair components will become available however my crystal ball is fairly cloudy as to when that will be.

 

From reading many of your posts I know you love that car, and having test driven a Cali 30 with HS and an earlier model Cali back to back it's the car to get on my list. Honestly I would be surprised if you sold your car.

 

This is a great discussion and I appreciate everybody’s honest feedback!!

The DCT failure could happen to my Cali tomorrow. If it did, I would fix it right away and then class action Ferrari. I am sure I can find a lawyer that wouldn’t mind suing one of the most profitable car companies in the world with one of the strongest brand equity.

A car with less than 10,000 miles that is always dealer serviced would make a great candidate for lead plaintiff. I’m sure this means I have no chance of ever being offered a limited or special edition Ferrari. LOL, like used Ferrari buyers ever had a chance to begin with. So, no loss there.

 

Well im not so sure Ferrari is who to go after. I mean it appears they actually lose money repairing the DCT under the new power warranty (again from reference to a Post from a certified ferrari technician) and are using the parts provided by the vendor Getrag. By all accounts there are some electrical sensors inside the DCT that fail due to over heating, however there is no evidence the DCT are operating outside normal operating conditions and there is nothing wrong with the transmissions mechanically. By all accounts the issue is with components Getrag specd for use and since the replacements are exactly the same parts that are being replaced means there hasnt been a "fix". Surely Ferrari can request updated parts but since these are all models that are already released, Ferrari has very little they can do, with the exception of doing the best they can to ensure the same problem doesnt occur in cars currently being manufactured.

It is my opinion that if Getrag were to manufacture a part that can withstand the temperatures that actually exist inside the DCT the problem would eventually work itself out. They very well may have done so and not issued a new part number though that seems odd if that were the case.

 

Since it's still a relatively new product, being used in ever-evolving cutting edge applications, ultimate responsibility for redress may lie with both parties. Getrag may need to modify the hardware to broaden its capabilities and Ferrari may need to change the way it deploys the hardware to get around avoidable problems.

BTW, the same 7DCL750 has also failed before on the SLS AMG, another low volume high-performance production car.