California DCT Speed Sensor saga

So I am sickened to say my car has required the DCT speed sensor be replaced... horrible. I have now been without my car for 6 weeks while I have had the diagnosis, waited on Ferrari to release the restrcited parts, shipped them to service, installed all new harness, sensor and gaskets... just to learn that now I also need an SAP unit... wowow this has been a Nightmare that doesn’t seem to end. Now the car is sitting at Ferrari of Tampa waiting on their guys to get the newly diagnosed parts in to hopefully maybe actually get my car back.. for a small fortune. I can not fathom how Ferrari has not issued a recall for an issue that is unquestionably a procedural installation error which had it been installed properly from the build would not likely have ever occurred. Meanwhile those of us who have had this unfortunate experience not only have the huge aggravation of not having our cars for extensive lengths of time, we spend an exorbitant sum of money on this repair. I am into this for over $8k now and we still haven’t factored in the new parts required.. unreal.. others? I seem to read similar scenarios on here... my buddy is thinking of selling his 458 just for this reason,,, watching the car disappear for now what will be Months, and paying through the nose when it is all said and done.

 

No doubt that sucks. Very sorry to hear. How many miles are on it? May be helpful too if others that have had it occur chime in with the mileage at failure.


Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat

 

Just rolled over 22k miles. 1 owner car and just went through the full ferrari service at Ferrari F Lauderdale in December 18..

 

Sorry to hear. What year Cali, Brad?

 

Late 2012..

 

GNALUZU, Today at 5:43 PM
What were the symptoms of the DCT sensor issue? Or did a warning pop up on the display?

1. Absolutely Nothing! Never had a single warning light. I went to the gym.. came out to the car, got in and started it, display went through the system checks, came back w the green all good, tapped the R to select reverse and Nothing.. car wouldn’t go in reverse. At that time a warning light appeared on the dash.. tried shifting to sport mode, tried restarting, tried letting the car sit for 20 minutes.. called Ferrari and asked and they recommended all the above, confirmed ambient temp was adequate (I am in Florida, so no prob there)..
   
   Had to then get out and push the car back enough to clear the curb to be able to put in drive, which worked and drove it to the nearest (6 or 7 miles) service center recommended to me by FFL, for a diagnosis. That was the first week of March. Still not complete...

 

Reminds me of my run in with a similar problem with my 458.

Pulled into a parking spot, hit reverse to back in but nothing. Got only a red transmission light on the dash. In race mode at the time.

Finally ended up going to a local repair facility but when I had to go into reverse, it worked. Left as it wasn’t the dealer. No problem after that until I took it into the dealer for its yearly and I asked them to look. Couldn’t find anything.

Left the dealer and took a drive to make sure it all worked when I stopped for gas. Went into reverse to get to an open pump but no go. Realized I had put it back into race mode for the first time since it originally failed. Moved to sport on the manettino and reverse worked fine.

Moved to race mode and it still worked fine. But after a few minutes reverse failed again. Took it back to the dealer and showed them.

With a hard fail and a way to replicate they began to look at it with Maranello. They claim the fault was with the reverse switch! Replaced and it has been fine ever since.

Still don’t quite believe it tho....

SV


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Does your car have the oil cooler on the back of the gear box? I know they started to install them mid 2012, and once they did the sensors stopped overheating. This is why I paid for the New Power Warranty. Sorry man, I know the feeling of getting bent over at a dealer. Do you live in Tampa as well?

 

I do not think mine has that oil cooler.. I do not live in Tampa, I am actually visiting Longboat Key on my boat..have a home in Miami. I was at the marina gym when I went out to the car to drive back to the marina and no reverse. Ferrari now says I need a new gearbox ECU as well for another $5500.. it is just disgusting. If this was an anomoly and a one off event on a car with 137k miles.. I would say hey.. things break. When it is something where there are dozens and dozens of accounts of this issue on a car, mine with less than 22k miles which has Always been serviced by the same original purchase dealer... wow. Takes on a whole different perspective.

 

Yes, given the circumstances around the DCT sensor, they should have recalled it for free. It's a known design flaw hence the oil cooler bandaid.

 

This is one reason I think the early California will suffer in future used sales, faulty DCT sensors. The top sensors are easier to live with, albeit not cheap, as other convertible manufacturers suffer from top sensor failures as well. Not exactly sure what was changed in the DCT for the T ( though I’ve read it is a second generation DCT for the T) and subsequently the 488 and others but speed sensors haven’t been an issue on the T. To me after having seen more then a couple of folks purchasing a 10-13 California and within a few weeks suffering a DCT failure leads me to think the cars already had the issue and were traded off without repair. Seems in this case the OP has had the car for a while so this isnt one of those cases but I’d agree that it seems like poor customer service on the part of both Ferrari and Getrag but many of the cars haven’t failed..... yet.

Funny that they seem to think the ECU is bad too, and yeah that would be an expensive part for sure. That’s a tough pill to swallow. Good luck op.

 

That is for sure... and I am in precisely that situation. I purchased a one owner car that was serviced exclusively by Ferrari for all service it’s entire life.. and paid more for the car because of it.. I wanted the great service history and single owner confidence that came with it, believing there would be no stories. Then literally 3 weeks after purchase I have this DCT failure and I am being told essentially to pound sand because I am no longer in the Ferrari service network.. all because the car became inoperable (while 250 miles from home) and I went to a reputable and recommended local independent shop. I contend that I couldn’t care less what happened in the 3 weeks Post purchase.. It is not as if I had the car for two years, did service elsewhere, tracked the car etc.. I have not even had it long enough for an oil change Post Ferrari network service. And to be clear, this is not the fault of Ferrari of Tampa. Those guys have been very helpful and worked to turn the car around once they had it.. but this is still a Ferrari North America issue. This car has been serviced exclusively by Ferrari since brand new. It had catastrophic failure 3 weeks post purchase with conditions known to be present in the original version of the DCT gearbox from apparent poor insulation and wire routing etc.. these are restricted parts which tells you they know of the issue, they are trying to control the repairs as well as generating a database of failure numbers.. I work in Private Aviation, with Congress, NAFTA, the FAA, EASA.. I know why you track failures.. and then not offering a responsible solution to owners who experience massive failures. Fine, don’t provide a mass recall for the % that have the problem, but at minimum, make life easier for those of us who have failure on something that is Known to occur repeatedly (multiple vehicles) in the network. They did not add a gearbox cooler on the late 2012 model for fun.. it was added to lower temps and at least in part to help correct the occurrence via temperature management. Well, we trusted the brand to build us a great car.. with less than ~22-24k miles on a car serviced by the OEM since it’s delivery, this is unacceptable. Seems this point is falling on deaf ears as I am told it is out of network. Yes, when Scuderia Car Parts sells the ECU for $1816 and Ferrari sells the same part for $5400.. that is a no brainer decision. There is not even an attempt by FNA to value the customer, their money or their passion for the brand. There in lies the loss they don’t yet quite understand. A lifetime of ownership in a brand one had a passion for, extinguished by the single worst car ownership experience of a lifetime thus far. My 5yo son and my 2 yo daughter have not even unpacked their Puma ferrari shoes or her Ferrari store teddy bear.. because I haven’t even seen my car in 8 weeks come Monday. I owned it for 3 Weeks prior to this.

 

I'm sorry to learn of your woes with your car. The earlier model was definitely more vulnerable to DCT failures. I can only offer the following comments.

Did the seller offer to sell you extended warranty? Was it even mentioned? The seller and the dealer would know a lot about the possibility of such failures so on the basis of professional responsibility, they should have provided the opportunity for a buyer to protect himself, if not to also explain exactly why it would be prudent for the buyer to have extended warranty.

There would be elements of dealer profit involved in any DCT repair so one might question why such profit should be entertained if the dealer sold you a car that died only 3 weeks after purchase.

If the seller and dealer honestly did not knowingly sell you a flawed car and you did not put on a lot of mileage, wear and tear prior to the DCT giving out, then the problem might well have happened to them if they had not sold it. So just as you would not expect their car to give out 3 weeks after sale, the sellers should also not expect their car to die 3 weeks after sale, for they would not be in business very long if all their customers had such problems. In that case, it should be reasonable to expect some help from the sellers to defray the cost of repairs, because they should not expect it to happen often. If you can afford it, one such deal may be to pay for the repairs but have the sellers include a 1-year extended warranty with the cost of repairs. An alternate suggestion would be to pay half of the repairs and also buy a 1-year extended warranty.

My rationale behind this suggestion is that you DO need the warranty, at least for peace of mind.

You also need a break in the repair costs. Legally-speaking, it would be costly to try to force the sellers to pay for repairs but if they are reputable people, they should see that you are willing to buy peace of mind and help defray the cost of repairs. As I mentioned, the dealer would have some sales margin to play with and if there are no repair claims during the 1 year of extended warranty, his cost would also be limited to just administrative costs and he would have made money on the warranty.

I hope these comments are helpful. DCTs are wonderful technological advances but as pioneer 1st-owners of an exclusive low-volume item, there are greater risks and costs involved. The only ways to protect yourself are extended warranty and budgetary contingencies for possible repairs. This is what businesses do in such situations. When potential personal costs get very high, you need to treat them like you would as a business.

Good luck.

 

Hi, I'm sorry to hear about your issue.
Did you buy your car from a specialist dealer which is why Ferrari are saying it's no longer in the network?
Also, any dealers selling you a car that has a failure within 3 weeks must surely be covered by them?
I'm in the UK and considering buying a California. Was yours the California 30? Not sure if that was the model with the added oil cooler or if indeed it also has the same problems?

 

This is a good point ... some states (not sure about Florida) will have an automatic warranty to the buyer of a used car, where if the car fails to pass inspection or has an issue that makes it dangerous on the road, the selling dealer will have the option to repair the car at their expense or rescind the sale -- Massachusetts does exactly that, the duration of the warranty is tied to the age of the car and the mileage -- 30 days for a high mileage car, 90 days for a low mileage example. Obviously, if the car will not go into gear, it's not driveable safely. This is to prevent dealers from unloading unsafe or undriveable cars on customers with no recourse.

If you bought the car from Ferrari of Fort Lauderdale, they should be working with Ferrari of Tampa Bay on your behalf with Ferrari USA or with Italy. In fact, Ferrari of Fort Lauderdale should have just trucked the car from Tampa Bay to their shop since it was a new purchase. I would not hesitate to reach out to Ferrari customer service in Italy, they were helpful to me. The USA number on the website is 877-933 7727 and the email address I worked with was [email protected] ... if you are getting nowhere with the dealers, sometimes they can apply some encouragement to get a better outcome.

It should not matter if the car first went to an independent for diagnosis if it is in the hands of an authorized Ferrari dealer. If the independent worked on the gearbox, that's maybe another story but it does not sound like they did.

 

What was the quote to repair the gearbox? I also think I’d like a Ferrari mechanic to show me the reason they think the ecu is bad. Also if you do buy the ecu third party I think you still have to have Ferrari program the ecu to your car. I don’t know wtf they are saying about out of network other then perhaps another Ferrari dealer is in your area but even still if it’s only been 3 weeks and it quit, which has happened a lot over the last year, you would think they would at least offer to split the cost since you bought the car at a premium. And it’s interesting if they didn’t offer to certify the car. Would have been really handy right now.

I agree that the DCT is a superb improvement over previous F1 transmissions. And since it appears only the first gen (and gen 1.5 if you count the 13-14 models) seem to be affected. I also agree that if you buy an early California (or FF or 458) a new power warranty is a really good idea specifically reguarding the DCT. Seems the issue was resolved with the 15 and up models. I sure understand the frustration of paying these prices for a car that has a major failure due to a known but kinda hidden issue only a few weeks into ownership. The good news( well better then a full DCT replacement) is that many Ferrari dealers can open the DCT and repair them and the repair covered, but I don’t recall length of the warranty. And it’s, in Ferrari terms, quite affordable over a 30k DCT replacement.

 

Your problem was a faulty reverse switch and not a DCT failure or issue.

Obviously this is completely different from a sensor failure. With sensor failures, half of the gear box and not just reverse are unavailable. The sensor is inside the DCT . The box must be removed from the car, opened up and replaced.

This is a complex and time consuming process. Hence the cost is high.

How much did you have to pay for replacing the reverse button? A few hundred bucks part and labor?

 

Part of deciding to buy a particular car lies in understanding what you are buying.

This applies to buying a new car as well as a used one. For instance, if the new car incorporates the 1st iteration of high performance designs, you can be 100% sure that you will be part of a potentially expensive "long term road test".

While many people still decide to buy such cars, they do so because there is a warranty and their plan was always to sell or trade in the car within 1 or 2 years anyway. Those buyers mitigate their risks. However, if you plan to keep the car past warranty expiration, you are not one of those happy-go-lucky car flippers and you will rely on how well the car was developed.

For used car buyers, your risks are even higher because you cannot tell how the car was used, can never be 100% sure you know the history of the car. And since you are buying the car because of a lower purchase price, you are most likely less able to absorb a loss due to problems with the car. So you should definitely have or negotiate a minimum of a 1-year warranty on the car so you can flush out any issues before you realize you have to sell it or can more comfortably decide to keep it.

So that's with the 1st iteration, 1st model year of a radical design. I never buy such cars because I consider them too risky. I always pick something from the last 1/3 or 1/4 production run of the model because the factory should have worked out all the major issues by then. I don't care about novelty or the fact the car is no longer the latest model. I just want to own a properly field-tested design.

The DCT is just another modern automatic transmission. It's costly to fix because it is proprietary and low volume, hence it uses some very expensive fluids, parts and there are still very few properly-trained service mechanics for them. Aside from that, if a mechanic has the skills to fix one of the other new automatic transmissions, they have the skills to do DCTs. Ferrari is training their own techs because they recognize the fears of DCT failure is holding back some potential buyers. IMO Ferrari made an initial mistake in overly relying on Getrag for reliability and cost management... but they wanted to shake up the market with the technology, be the first.

 

Yes, not a dct failure.

Didn’t cost me a thing. Repaired under warranty.

Just letting others know in case they run into the same thing...

SV


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

458 DCT issues are quite different from Cali DCT issues. The Cali DCT sensor failures are not rare and are probably due to inadequate cooling of the internal system.

458 DCT sensor failures are much less frequent than Cali DCT failures due to superior cooling with the 458.

Reverse button failures also happened with the T bar for the 360.

 

That is true but the same sensors fail in the FF and 458. Not sure exactly what was changed in 2015 but it was enough that the DCT was designated a second generation. Of course I read someplace that the DCT in the Portofino while being virtually the same is a fourth generation. I haven’t figured out when they upgraded to a third gen but there obviously were things that were updated due to failures. Doesn’t help first generation DCT owners with the exception of maybe superior replacement parts when repaired.

 

The rate of failure differs dramatically between 458/488 and first gen California’s

The Portofino has adopted an improved DCT cooling system with the radiator layout
located at the rear near the box similar to the 458/488.

If you want a first generation California, you might consider finding someone who can help redesign the cooling system. An owner in Australia did so by upgrading the radiator.

 

Yea there have been many discussions about the main cause of failure being directly related to the heat build up and additional cooling reducing failures. Even the California 30 was fitted with a cooler at the rear of the car. There was even talk of the tubing being undersized, which with pressure buildup in a small line would generate more heat. I even recall reading about the Australian modification and how it helped.

In my mind the safer bet is to look at 13 and up. The wife ( the ultimate decision maker since she controls the purse strings regardless of how much I make) prefers the California T. So that is likely the way I’ll go, but she’s also mandated a few other things to be finished first. One of which happenes to be a new building to house not only personal items but what ever vehicle we wind up purchasing. I’m behind on that mostly due to permits and zoning as I have the funds and most of the materials waiting for the permits to come thru. I’m in the looking at cars and deciding on the must haves phase. But if a nice 10-12 example came along and I could get it certified for a new power warranty I’d be hard pressed to pass it up if the price is right reguardless of the possibility of a sensor failure.

 

Go for the lighter, faster, and more reliable Cali30.

 

This is my initial desire, however the wife’s input was she liked how the inside of the t looked and would rather have that one. To me the Cali 30 ticks all the right boxes really. I’ve driven all 3 and I have to say I like the Cali 30 and the t for different reasons.