I went in for a 5k major, it cost XXXX more and here's what happened"

@itsablurr, I can see you are from a utopian part of the country. Out here in the wild west, a major service generally means all the inspection stuff, oil and filter, belts and bearings. The water pump is an inspection item that generally gets replaced every other major, fuel filters on that same schedule and charcoal canister and O2 sensors never. At least that has been my experience over the past 5 majors in my 2 348's. Some shops are not as thorough and don't really spend as much time as they should, I have found. Depends on their work load. This is why I tell them to keep the car as long as necessary to do everything.

 

Cool. Most of the headers I have seen that failed always seem to have stock cats. I have no proof but I feel a lot of the problem was the cats as well as the headers. I think we all would have been a lot better off if the cats were changed to hiflow right off the start. Especially the bypass cats because people leave them on and really do not know there condition. Even on the 5.2 all you have is a thermo to tell you to slow down. When looking for my car in the early 2000s half the cars I drove flashed the slowdown if you were on the gas for any length of time.

 

When I do mine its the following
Belts
Check cam timing (usually nothing has changed)
Water pump rebuild
Alternatir rebuild
Fuel injector cleaning (they all ways need it)
New plugs
All fluids including F1
All filters
Freshen up seats (i drive quite a bit)
This time (installing new oil temp guage where clock is)
Freshen up dash with cleaner and revitalizer moisturizer.
This time the rear window outside moulding needs to be done (20years old)

 

I'm not saying I've had that schedule of items followed at all, simply framing the scope of what the defined scope of the major service is per the original documentation since there seemed to be a degree of ambiguity and arbitrary judgement of what work is considered in-scope for a major earlier in the thread. What better place to start than the originally issued documentation, rather than what some guy on a forum opines? Of course, the current day application has expanded any original scope to include some of the critical/high-risk areas of wear or failure recognized over time, ex: tensioner pulleys, sprocket drive bearings, chain tensioner pads, etc...

 

To be honest, I had not expect it to be this cheap, and I really wonder why.
The parts + fluids that are necessary are already that expensive. (ok, maybe they do not do the waterpump and HE bearings, just the belts, but even then)
For this kind of money I best book a ticket with a Ferry the next time, to have it done in the UK, instead of doing it myself ...

 

That is mighty kind of you to offer but I'm going to see if I can do it myself right now. Yep it is Cauley that quoted me but I don't know what it all entails as they have the service records and I don't (yet). I'll know more in a few weeks.

 

Egad, I hate to repeat these maintenance threads, but I do want to state that for most of us driving our cars the usual minimal annual mileage - for me that's less than 2500 miles (okay Liberty Mutual? ) - we use the time elapsed rather than miles driven. So, annuals are for oil. Biannuals are for transmission and brake fluid. Majors are every 5 years and cover everything else. Hill bearings and water pump are usually every 10 years. Lifter gaps as needed. Of course, one is free to interject whatever service in between they see fit. But as a guideline, this is what I have been using on my cars since 2002.

 

I think John is making a point that I tend to agree with and that's don't fix what's not broken. I'm all for checking things out and attending to what is needed but replacing other parts just coz is, IMHO, foolish.

 

I attempted the fuel tank drop method once..just to see if it could be done. YES..it can be done. However it is not as easy as some seem to think it is. I would not do it again. Just pushing the engine back far enough to get access to the crank bolt is enough to say forget it. As well as trying to get the left side timing cover off without bending the a/c lines all to hell.

Ferrari designed that engine to be removed for a reason. I can see dropping the tank to do a water pump replacement however. It does make the job less painful. But other then that..no real reason to remove it.

 

amen.

 

What he said

 

I have also found that the old plastic fuel line connections are very brittle, better left alone.......

 

While it sounds intimidating, the engine removal wasn't a big deal.
I took my time with the wiring harness, fuel, oil and hvac lines, as well as emissions stuff to make sure i knew the exact routing for re-installation.
But other than that, its really only 'lefty loosey'.
Having the motor there sitting on a platter for you makes it very easy to correctly time the cams, install gaskets and torque things.

Can it be done in other ways? Sure, anything can. But im my decades of working on cars, boats and planes, Ive found that its almost always easier and usually faster to remove more to gain access

 

With all due respect to you, you don't know what you are talking about and you obviously have not worked on enough of these cars to have a really valid opinion.

 

Mitch - the cam seals on my 98 (major done 5 years ago) and my project 95 don't leak.

 

Your car, your decision.

My 328 did not leak and I was lazy not to change it, then after the major, it leaked right on to the ****ing header and I got to do it again. This next the major, the engine comes out and it gets the royal treatment.

So don't try and tell me that if it does not leak it does not need replacing. That is full of ****.

 

Mitch - so you go around correcting a bunch of non problems? Look, as you know, I'm all for doing things right but I'm not going to start replacing parts just coz. I've got a 125K mile BMW. Runs like the energizer bunny. Should I start taking it apart to replace everything?

There is doing stuff to the min, the max and then just plain overboard. Cam seals don't fall in the overboard category but I can tell you straight, I'm not replacing tensioner bearings with Hill bearings every 3 years or rebuilding a perfectly operating water pump.

 

Keep in mind, virtually none of the $20K+ invoices have ever had to do with a snapped timing belt. I believe Ferrari designed the drivetrain for engine-out servicing, but not for an every 3 year service cycle. That's insane.

 

So Dave are you saying that you removed the covers and Cams and did not replace the orings and paper type seals?.

 

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. If you have a trick to saving paper gaskets, let me know

If cams come out, seals get replaced. But it doesn't mean every major the cams would need to come out. Look, I'm never going to under service but I'm not going to over service ether. My 95 is a restoration and not a service at this point so many items are being replaced as a result of a total engine overhaul.

 

I think the problem is that with the engine out some things are easy to do -- change water pump, bearings, tensioner thermostat, etc.
Once engine is back in and if these fail, major job to fix so it is hard to know where to draw the line.

 

I would not personally do a major service without timing the cams. If that means new belts are installed and no adjustments need to be made, great, but I want to confirm.

Not that much extra work to do once you have already removed the engine.

Could you get by without it. Of course! When it comes to the 355 I am picky and probably over do things but I like the end result.

I would not put the same effort into my 163k mile BMW because as great as it is I honestly do not like it or care for it as much.