I am not surprised. Sketchy parts availability is ALWAYS true for exotic cars and motorcycles. There are many places in the USA and Canada to make custom hydraulic hoses for any application desired. What I can gather is that the dealer is not putting in the required effort to get the 612 fixed. This is different from the dealer not being able to make it happen in any way. Also a result of the general dumbing down of the service technicians who were trained only to replace parts. An independent worth his/her salt would have no trouble sourcing that oil line. Also to counter the other point about Bosch CIS systems, there are many places who will rebuild them as millions of cars from the 80s used them. There is a difference between can't do and won't do.
You are so right. Years ago I had a 1995 Infiniti Q45a (the "a" stood for active suspension). After many New England winters the lines running to the suspension deteriorated. Infiniti only offered this option in '95 and '96, so they no longer had the parts. I have a great independent mechanic and he just ordered commercial grade hydraulic lines. He did the replacement cheaper than if I could have even sourced the lines from Infiniti. Unfortunately he won't work on Ferraris.
You may want to check this. I'm not sure about the F430 production, but more 360s were produced than either the Testarossa or the 355 from what I've seen in the past.
Everything you said is indeed true..however. The current lead time to get Larry Fletcher at CIS technologies to even look at say a fuel distributor is 3-4 months. The down time is basicly an entire driving season depending where you live..never mind the cost of having the car towed home while thenlarts are being rebuilt..the having it brought back to have them installed.. Another example is Lambo Gallardo ball joints..they fail regularly..lambo no longer supplies them. Only one person has decided to set up a repair service an I think they are in California.
@tbakowsky , I know you don't like long posts, but hear me out please. These all look like opportunities for a successful bushiness to me. This is how businesses get created sometimes by back filling niches that previously had no impacts or way into because of abundant current supply. The question is can a whole list of parts be identified that need 10 off manufacturing for? Hill Engineering did make some components because of lack of supply and/or quality issues with Ferrari parts. Now, if you say that you replaced your ball joints with Hill Engineering, people see that as a positive versus a while ago where they may have seen it as a negative because it wasn't an OEM Ferrari ball joint. Therefore, a company that can machine parts that need replacement and can charge a premium since making 1 or 5 of something has a cost that is very expensive to start out with. People will pay a premium to keep their awesome Ferrari's running, but they are NOT going to allow being ripped off. I think this can be done, especially if it is convenient for an owner to buy the part instead of having to find a guy who knows a guy that can possibly get one made. There can be a successful business model to repair Ferrari's 308, 328, 355, 360, 430, 599, 612 if getting them to the location is economical. There are plenty of young people that want to earn $75 an hour flat working on a Ferrari if the business owner also is ok with a charging $125 an hour. The problem is when the business owner is charging $4500 for a Ferrari service and the person that does the work for the 1 day gets $300, parts are $600 or less and the business owner is taking $3000, all the while the tech is getting rushed to complete the job even if it cuts corners. No one likes to work under these conditions. It doesn't matter about all the other expenses that the employees don't see because they don't see them. The person doing the work only sees what gets charged, their pay, and the cost of the parts, and stress of rushing all the while telling them mistakes because they had to rush are their fault. That's why they get frustrated and leave. I see this model as a profit sharing model where, the techs get profit shares based upon years AND work quality. Each job is the sole responsibility of that tech and they are rewarded for that. If they don't feel rushed all the time, and make it more enjoyable by having proper tools to do a job, and with a profit sharing/customer job based compensation, I think a successful repair facility can be built. For example, let's a Ferrari service is $4500, the parts are $1000. The job should take 8 hours (not the bull crap book hours that dealerships like to quote) but 8 real hours, then the time is 16 hours, plenty of time to take their time and not be rushed. The bay costs are $45/hour to pay for the lease, electricity, maintenance, phones, internet, etc. and that is subtracted from the job. The techs get to see these costs. Therefore, $4500 - $1000 (parts) - $560 (16 ours x $35 bay charge) - $500 (business owner cut) - $1000 (tech cut) = $1440 profit to be divided across all shares. Work hours are 8 hours only per day, no more. I believe this would work. When I purchased my Ferrari, I made it EXTREMELY clear to the gentleman that prepped my car before I picked it up (who is unbelievable talented, and thank god Mike at Yellow Compass got me in touch with him), that I don't care if it takes 2 extra days to do a 1 day job, he was to take his time, go very slow and do everything in a meticulous way. So what if it cost me an extra $3000 to make sure it was done RIGHT, not FAST to make a bigger profit. Employees want to share in the success, but I make it clear that they also have to share in bad times also. They want skin in the game, and they are going to work on a very expensive vehicle, and it takes a lot of time investment to perform adequately at any job, but when they share in the profit, they become more involved and care more to keep making a good living. If there were more Ferrari's within 300 miles of me, I would build a shop and grab a few guys from some of the shops in Houston to make a business proposal and build a building on my commercial property.
They have a model to repair and refurbish. I was offered some refurbishment on my 16m for 16k and classiche included. Not sure exactly the value. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This is spot on. In every crisis, there is opportunity for those willing to put in the work. The dealership model is terribly broken and is ripe for disruption.
Looks like significantly more 360s made (16,365, including Modena and Spider, but not including Challenge Stradale) than the Testarossa (7,177) or F355 (11,273 total, Berlinetta, GTS and Spider).
Classic car market is holding up well compared to the rest... Monterey seems to be a big hit this year. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Here is an oppertunity..360 headlights. No longer available..who wants to spend the time/money to make them? This is a potential future issue that will determine if a car get written off..or saved. I have 3 cars right now in need of new headlight assemblies. Non repairable..and I cannot write a saftey for them because of this issue. Otherwise the cars are in great shape..any ideas?
3D printed assemblies. Take a whole unit, have it 3D scanned, then a CAD person will hone it and then have them 3D printed. The access ports can be drilled or milled. For lenses, these can be milled from polycarbonate. This should work.
Interesting that BaT sell through rates in Aug 2022 are higher than the industry. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Out of every 100 listings, 78 sold while the rest of them did not sell due to reserve not being met or any other reason. That's my understanding.
There isn't one that I know of so I am capturing it in a spreadsheet. Image Unavailable, Please Login
The BAT trend seems to be continuing, at least in the cars I watch. I was watching three yesterday, none of which reached reserve or came anywhere close to what they would have brought a few months ago.
The future of spare parts in going to be 3D printing. When will we get that at a reasonable price for cars that are toasters is another question. Many cars can get written off because of the 360 headlight issue. Did you know in Cali you have to have a cali certified cat converter specific to a car. No one makes that for the 550 so to get a cat from ferrari is $20K last I looked.
Well somebody needs to get a move on with the headlight issue..cause now I have a forth car that needs a set..maybe I should try to get this done. I wonder about the legal end of it though.. could Ferrari put up a stink about it?