FF Brake Job

My cousins FF has 40,000 miles. The sensor says he needs new brakes. Ferrari dealer concurs even though the brakes perform just fine. They have quoted $38,000 for the ceramic brake job. Is this typical and is the price reasonable. It is an everyday car for him and the car has never been tracked or driven hard.

 

With all due respect, $38K is absolutely nuts.

 

OEM parts are 98% of that
Time / Miles based replacement
Ive seen 1st hand what happens when the rotor itself fails due to age... and its not pretty ( or safe )

There must be aftermarket options , swap to a tradtional set up but be aware braking experience will be affected as well

GL

A

 

I agree. It sounded nuts to me also.

 

If he is anywhere near Washington, ask him to swing by Girodisc to have his car measured so a set of steel can be made available. Another option is to send them one front and one rear rotor along with their respective brake pads for measurements, and they will send them back after completion. I had spoken to them a year ago but have not been anywhere near the Pacific NW area.

 

Somebody please tell us 38k isn't accurate. I'm only at 11,000 miles on my 2015 but it's a daily driver so the day will come eventually. The part I dread the most is hearing the complaints from my wife about how ridiculous it is to own a FF as a daily driver if brakes are 38 grand. The FF is awesome but that's absurd.

Scuderia car parts lists caliper and pads as about $2,000 per wheel so round up to 10,000 in parts and you are still nowhere near 38.

 

I gotta imagine the 38k includes rotors, not just brake pads. No?

 

I would hope 38K includes at least one caliper..

 

That price must include all new rotors and pads. My guess is he will have some lower cost options such as switching over to metal or finding a good Ferrari independent. I bet you can have this done for substantially less. I'd be surprised if the rotors are worn, but they could be taking some damage from small pebbles, etc. You don't want to take chances with carbon rotors.

According to Scuderia Parts:
Front brake discs (both sides): $6,339.78
Rear brake discs (both sides): $5,988.24
Front brake pads (both sides):$1,799.84
Rear brake pads (both sides):$1,822.20
Total major parts : $15,950.06

Say there's another $2k worth of parts I haven't accounted for and you're basically at $18k in parts. Then you have labor. My guess is no matter what, with OEM parts you are looking at least $22k. Still a hefty sum but no where near that estimate.

I would ask around for a good independent in your area.

 

Generally speaking to do a pads and rotors on any CCM equipped Ferrari you're generally in the $20k to $25k range although there are still some dealers out there that feel the need to gouge their customers even further as pointed out by the OP.

We have talked about making an iron conversion for the FF for some time but have not been able to get our hands on a car or a front and rear OEM rotor for us to measure. If there is anyone here in Washington or British Columbia that would be interested in coming by and/or if someone would be willing to ship a front and rear our way for us to take measurements we would be happy to do a production run. We do this routinely and if a customer is worried about downtime we can overnight them each way which we're happy to cover and we always insure them for full retail value.

Based on the general dimensions I know that we can easily machine these rotors out of one of our existing castings without issue. they would be 100% plug and play with a set of pads from us or any number of aftermarket pad suppliers. Price would likely be $3400 for the complete car set of rotors with pads being another $400-$500 depending on the compound.

We've done thousands of iron conversions over the rears on Ferraris, Porsches, Lambos, McLarens etc. and to this day I've yet to have a customer tell me they regret the decision.

 

I would send Girodisc the rotors if I can manage to put one side of the car on stands, and if I have the skill to remove those said parts. I think the wheel needs the rotor to be back on the car, right? Too bad I don't live anywhere near Washington or have a road trip heading that way...

 

$3400 for a complete set sounds like a really fair price. Clearly as these cars get older this is the way forward. I hope Girodisc can find a donor car to measure.

I know the Carbon brakes are more costly to produce but at $20 to $25k, frankly that's just a rip off by Ferrari.

 

fwiw my service guy at WWoC who has been there for several years said they've never had to do new ceramics on any car since he has been there. thats alot of cars.

 

I can also confirm , that in the past 7 years, I have only replaced one set of fronts, due to extreme abuse.

The only others I've replaced were on our Challenge cars.

S

 

Question: If I were to send you a front and rear rotor for you to get information to design and create your replacement steel set... Would you cover insurance for shipping and replacement cost if something were to happen during shipping or while in your care ( Essentially from the time we package them for shipment to you until they are back in our possession )

S

 

Or maybe the rip off is actually from Brembo...

Two thumbs up to you for stepping up to the plate!!!

 

im sorry but does he track his car? at 40k miles i think its safe to say he doesnt need new rotors - theres just no effin way.

 

Thank god there seems to be a cheaper option. At 38k or even 25k for brakes I mean that's kind of b.s. I mean really? 25k for some brakes.....

 

Thats not an ff thing. That will be for any ferrari with ceramics.


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Rationalized another way.... IMO

You may be able to GET a less expensive option going with steel brakes and associated brake pads, but you will give up the braking performance that the car was designed for.

Have you ever tried braking from 180mph+ speeds on steel brakes?

There is a difference , I promise.

Kinda like going with cheaper tires, there are less expensive options , but then the car fails to handle / feel the way it does with the performance level tires the car was designed around.

For that matter, why even have a Ferrari , if one is ok with just driving around , never needing brakes that perform as well, or tires that help hold the road at speed...
why not just drive a Volvo , I hear their brake jobs are much less expensive.

( The above is meant to be humorous , not actually serious , simply a counter point )

You have to pay to play ... at what level you are playing is up to each owner.

S

 

But how many FF drivers are braking from 180mph+? The car was made to cruise around and not track. Some Porsche GT3 owners switch out the PCCB for steel when going on the track due to cheaper cost and avoid chance of fracturing the carbon rotor if a pebble finds its way in there (between pad and rotor) if go off course.

The main benefit for carbon rotors over steel is less weight for better handling and not as much for stopping power.

 

Understood and agreed ... not saying it can't be done. Just that there will be trade-off's that need to be considered.

When I was with Porsche, we had a client who did this very swap you suggested above, came in a week later complaining that the car wasn't stopping like before.

When I was at Mercedes, I had a brake job for an SLR , $70,000+ for pads/rotors all 4 corners, Carbotech at the time, had a set made for $52,000

There are options and I for one am open to them, as long as the owner / driver is aware.

Saying the price of parts are a ripoff isn't fair, its the price of performance....

Only my opinion.

S

 

+1

I would prefer to keep everything OEM than switch to steel if the car wasn't design that way. IMO, brakes and tires are the most important part of any car as the ability to stop is much more important than going.

I'm sure the two brakes feel different just from their inherent frictional coefficients, but I'd bet the system is incredibly complex now with brake bias being different, ABS settings, etc, etc. Doing a change for a track day in a closed environment is okay, but for street use I would be a little more leery.

$70k is insane lol! I thought the $38k was bad...

 

It is a Rip Off but Ferrari can get away with it, with fools like me paying £2400 for a bit of usually free software called Apple Carplay!