Looking at a 2012 FF any major pitfalls I should be aware of?

Hi all! Coming from p cars, excited to hop over to a car I've always felt was made exclusively for me. A shooting brake with a v12?!

I think I've found a good higher mileage example but would love to lean on your expertise as to what I should look for. I'm in the Manhattan market and am currently sourcing a reputable guy to do a PPI as well, but the more informed I am the better off I can negotiate.
Cheers!

 

You'll love it. I too have a P car (991.2 GT3) and the FF is a perfect compliment. The things I'd look for are a good service history and watch out for sticky buttons. Also, if you intend on lowering it via Novitecs, you may run in to the factory adjustable collars being seized. I had this problem and it was a PITA to get fixed. PTU is also a known problem item than can be a costly repair. I bought an aftermarket warranty when I got mine for peace of mind. Good luck

 

DCT and PTU. spend time searching. plenty of good independent shops within NYC radius.

 

Thanks for the replies guys, I've a bit of a fun history, lots of air cooled P cars but I've dailed the same breadwagon mini clubman for almost 10 years now. I love it and have worked on it to the gills, but it's time to let it rest and save it for special mini events. So natural evolution in my mind!

I'll look into aftermarket warranties, any recommendations? I've always kind of thought of them as scams but I don't intend to modify this one so happy to be proven wrong

 

Wld not touch an aftermarket warranty for on a ferrari in the usa. Get the power warranty from ur closest ferrari dealer

 

I'm fresh off of my first week with one and I adore it. Aside from the obvious PTU and DCT stuff (speaking of which, DCT issues seem to be way more common than PTU issues overall), here are some small/random things I noticed on the various FFs I looked at:

-Both FFs I checked out in person had a LOT of trouble opening the power hatch. Not sure if battery related or whatever, but in both instances it took more than 10 minutes to get it to open
-Seat belt extenders tend to break over time and iirc it's about $1800 to fix
-Dash leather shrinkage ($3k to 6k+ to fix depending on the extent of shrinkage) and headliner sag ($4-5k to repair)
-For a 2012 know that they had the DCT speed sensor issue that's about 18k to fix with no current third party workaround
-Both cars I checked had interior compartments that would not latch properly
-The mesh grills tend to rust
-Check to make sure there are no missing caps on the AC control panel, iirc it's about $5k to replace the panel and the caps are not sold separately
-Check to make sure the car has the tools, books, car cover, etc

I'll add more if I remember, long day at work and my brain is a bit fried right now

 

Dct fix is about 7500 these days. 18k is the old number from way back. Headliner shld be 2k to fix.

 

I only listed the price based on actual records I've seen. The car I just bought had the headliner fixed this year for over 4k and a 2012 I nearly bought had the DCT sensor done in 19 for over 17k. I hope you're right though bc overall I'm far more worried about the DCT going out than anything else

 

What dealer charged those prices and when?

 

No no no you're right! 2.2k for headliner but 4k total bill including a service. The DCT stuff I've definitely seen the 17k number for, what has changed on the repair for it to have dropped so much in price?

 

There's third party options now. I've had the third gear speed sensor replaced in mine, and it wasn't $18k. These cars aren't as bad to have as they used to be.

 

Who are the third part options?

 

Couple out there now: https://www.exoticars-usa.com/dct-dual-clutch-transmission-service-and-repair/, and I think GTE in our area will do it as well.

 

I thought u meant 3rd party warranties

 

Ahh no, we're on our own there!

 

Thanks for all the info guys! Every bit helps make a more informed decision

 

What as the dct bill when u did urs?

 

That makes me feel a lot better

 

Roundabout ~$9k, tough to split out the exact things on the bill but it seems about there.

 

I know of 2 with failed speed sensors in a 2013 & 2014 car just as a heads up. At first I thought the 2012's were more prone to failures, but after a lot of reading I think it's a cause of generally being on the road longer, not necessarily from Ferrari fixing anything in later MY's. I ended up with a low mileage 2012, cheaper than later years and at least from my reading, no real additional risk.

I'm also on the non-warranty side. Ferrari is asking $6k+ per year for power warranty, I don't think that makes sense anymore with the lower cost repairs available now. If the warranty covered regular maintenance that might be a different story, but that much for only covering big issues was too IMO.

 

I'm also in this same camp rhern...

I've had my 2012 FF (one of first 500, built Dec2011) for almost a year now and it's phenomenal how fun the car is to own and drive.

This is my 2nd F-Car / I had a 456MGT 6-speed for 7 years and it was fantastic / but had to sell it when both kids requested another 6 months to finish up their respective University degrees -- never had a warranty on that one. Did a major and a few other bits and it was expensive, but fine / no horror stories. I bought it at 14k miles and sold it at 22k miles, and yes, I sold it for more than I paid for it. The profit on the sale just about made the ownership a breakeven. About $23k in maintenance over the 7 years of ownership. Remember we've all already agreed nobody on these pages should ever buy a Ferrari as a profit-taking car. We own them to enjoy them, not to keep them in a glass box. Anyone who is buying to "trade" a Ferrari isn't gonna have a good time.

Back to the FF: I did the headliner on it too, and it was about $3k.

However I opted for the $7k Ferrari warranty on the FF as well because I wanted peace-of-mind in my first year of ownership.

Also agree with above, that if GTE in NJ can do either DCT or PTU for a "reasonable" cost ($10k?), that it may be worth taking the risk. Do I really want to pay $70k over 10 years for insurance? on a $150k car? The math gets too ugly too soon.

All depends on how you look at it, I guess. Also agree if standard maintenance ($1850?) were included in $7k annual insurance, it's almost reasonable.

I'm on the fence about the insurance renewal, but between now and it's expiry, I'm sleeping well.

Perhaps.
PTC

 

I wonder what mileage constitutes the risk to the speed sensor/PTU failure? Is there a range people are seeing?
I have a 2012 with 16k miles that just came out of CPO warranty ….


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For me it happened at 36k miles but im pretty sure if u look at ff,458, Cali you will see it happening at all miles ranges

 

And Ferrari still won’t own this, but will do everything in the power to restrict independent shops to fix..

 

One would think logically that cars driven harder or more miles would have more failures. Unfortunately there hasn't been any sort of pattern documented, it's all been fairly random. But then again, driving a car hard is subjective, so who knows if there still might be some truth to that.

One thing I was thinking is the difference between cars typically driven at city vs highway speeds and sport vs comfort shift modes. I would think cars that are constantly shifting at the 4wd gears between 1-4 would be at more risk than those driven mostly at higher speeds on 5th+ gear where the PTU is disengaged.