I got my notice today about the brakes from Ferrari North America. My car is scheduled for service but the dealer advised me they have no solution yet. Joe
When they say they have no solution what they would be referring to is that they have no “commercial” solution yet because of course there is a technical solution..
Unless Bosch understands the issue and has a fix or replacement part that is known good, I don't know that anyone can claim a technical solution other than replacing the booster and master cylinder assembly with a different, compatible part.
Yes, that is what I was referring to as a known technical solution. It would be a last resort though for commercial reasons.
Seems the fix would be install the 488 Pista/F8/812 booster-master cylinder! I just did a brake flush today. I’ll be a the Ferrari Club of America event at Sebring next Tuesday-Wednesday instructing at the track portion of the event. I planned on doing only a few laps in a couple sessions but this all has me extremely uneasy. My 488 is a 2019 and just turned over 6000 miles. It’s been a great car so far.
I guess I have a slightly different take on this. From the report it seems that root cause was only established on one unit. The others referred to have pending results. I take that as meaning they could not establish a cause of failure but also the question of whether they failed at all is open. Meaning the field report said brake failure but subsequent analysis doesn’t support it. For all kinds of reasons I imagine. Note also no 458s in the mix. All 488s. Although FChat has fielded reports of brake failure in 458s they don’t show up here, yet. Evidently the recall is for anything that included the affected components. Regarding the use of other components as a fix, it is possible that there isn’t sufficient space or mounting provisions for other components making them a non starter. And creating a new one would make a fix impossibly long to qualify. All of this is in the realm of speculation on my part. But it would also be interesting to see what the failure rates for brakes on other platforms compares to Ferrari. Not something that is definitive but can be enlightening as they share components with other platforms. ‘For all of us the odds of a brake failure haven’t shifted from one day to the next. But it does provide a good reason to review possible responses on our part should any symptom arise…use of e-brake, etc. SV
For the reported cars who have experienced the failure, how many miles were on the car when the brake failure happened? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
As a newer owner of a 2013 Spider (have had it since July 2020) this is the first thread I have read about any kind of brake failure. I have intermittently noticed 2 or 3 times over the 1500 miles or so that I have put on the car that when changing from first into reverse the brake pedal would be unexpectedly hard resulting in lengthened braking time. No problems noticed under any other conditions. No warning lights either. Seems to be related to braking in reverse only. Very briefly it kind of felt like the car reverted to having old time manual brakes. As soon as I put it in first gear and pulled away the brakes functioned normally with no incident of a hard pedal. Until I read this post I chalked this up to either some unexplained driver error on my part or a quirk on a car I was still pretty unfamiliar with. So I never reported this to my dealer. Is this a reported problem by anyone? This appears to be a different problem than the recall stated problem. Or could my problem be related?
This might have already been mentioned, I didn't read every part of this thread I was preparing the latest edition of our local FCA newsletter and wanted to include information on the recall so I contacted our dealer. What they said was... The dealership was in contact with FNA yesterday (11/2) and they want owners to follow this procedure: If you see the Low Brake Fluid warning message, pull over and call Ferrari Roadside Assistance. Roadside assistance will respond and call the closest dealer (for you) for instructions. So program your phone with the Ferrari Roadside Assistance number 1-866-788-6760
When you say you got you got notice Joe do you mean the email from Ferrari North America that basically states there is a braking problem, what to do about it etc. this is what I got, but no solution at this point.
I have a 2013 spider, owned since 2018. I have encountered a very hard brake pedal and surprisingly long stopping distances a handful of times during my ownership. That issue has happened infrequently and inconsistently so I just made a mental note to be cautious with cold brakes. I own many other cars with carbon brakes and never had that sensation. I received my F8 spider early this year and the 458 hasn’t really been driven much lately. I will check it out….
I just got the notice from Ferrari North America. I spoke to Ferrari of Ontario as my car is due for servicing as well and they said they have no solution at this point. Regards, Joe
I have had an abnormally hard pedal on a few occasions. I think they all were in forward gears at slow speeds (parking lot speeds). 2015 458 Spider, now at 41,000 miles. I have not received any notification yet.
I also inquired with Ferrari of Vancouver. They supported my suggestion of checked the brake fluid level regularly. At present that is all they can offer.
My incidents were all when I was barely moving, just a few mph. I may have had a hard pedal starting off in first but I can't remember for sure. Oh well, today my car was finally winterized for storage until sometime in April. So I guess I will wait until next spring to see what recall notifications I receive and when and what the fix is. No worries until then.
the failure being addressed by them recall is not intermittent there is just enough vacuum in the booster to allow 2-3 brake pedal presses even without the engine on you are likely sensing some pedal variation at startup as the vacuum resets
Thank you for the reply. I guess just be careful for now. My 7th service on my 15 Italia will be with a Master Ferrari Mechanic as I've lost confidence in the local Ferrari Dealership.
After trying again today, I still get a hard pedal when going in reverse and barely nudging the gas. The engine was cold and the brakes do stop the car but somewhat gradually rather than suddenly. I wonder if it's a vacuum issue at such a low rpm, essentially idle-ing. I doubt I was going more than 1 mph.
