355 355 engine out frequency?

First of all, congrats on the purchase! I got my F355 2 months ago and I'm absolutely loving it.

I too did my research and checked with my local and very experienced with 355s local mechanic. Net, net, what I've gathered is:

1) 3-5 years is the range, with 4-5 being totally ok generally speaking. Ferrari's 3 yr seems to be pretty conservative.
2) it'll of course depend on how, and how much you drive it. Many miles, or driving it hard vs going for soft cruises, will likely impact the timing.
3) better to be proactive than wait until last min. Keeping these cars serviced, even if early, helps you keep them long-lasting and driving great.

I'd love to hear what others have to say, but this is what I know. Mine was serviced in the summer of 2021 so I'm not planning to do it until summer 2025.

Oh, and finally, share some pix with us, will you?

 

It's all about your risk tolerance. If you do it at 3 years or 5 years or whatever you're comfortable with, you'll be fine.

 

I bought my car few months ago and last major was 4 years ago (only 3000 kms since).
I chose to have another one performed now to be sure everything is OK, but next one gonna be in 5 years, not before.

 

The reason for the engine-out spec is cam belts, specifically the tensioner bearing. Hill Engineering makes a very high quality tensioner bearing that, assuming you're not tracking your car or putting extraordinary miles on it, extends the service interval. I'm planning on doing an engine out in the 7-8 year range, maybe more.

 

7-8 years?
As 2NA said: it is about risk tolerance. I would add it is about the cost of a risk.
On my BMW E30 I can take the risk to brake a belt, I won't be broke if it happens.
On a 355, well... not the same story.

 

I will be doing my third engine out this winter.

Once when I bought it, 5 years after that and now this.

With fresh tensioner's, Hill bearings and OE Ferrari belts, I have gone 7 years on the last service and almost 15,000 miles without issue.

The belts will be fine for 7 more years but I have a small coolant leak I need to figure out so I'll pull it and see what's what (water pump seal is my guess). I'll post pictures of this set like I did with the 5 year old ones. I suspect they will look nearly new.

3 years is a a joke....but it mitigated any possible engine damage liability for Ferrari and boosted Ferrari Service revenue so why the hell not?

 

I bought my 355 in late 2020. Engine out and belt service were performed 2019. Almost no miles were put on it while it sat until it was sold.

The shop I go to - owner rebuilt his own 355 from ground up - told me the belt service interval of every 3- to 5-years was recommended after the release of car in 1994.

At that time it was only a 30,000 mile interval with no year recommendation. Service departments flipped out. They complained they’d lose too much money knowing it be years before one came back with that many miles (little did they know the other issues that would pop up). Ferrari changed the belt service recommendation to every 3- to 5-years or every 30,000 miles whichever came first.

To that end, I’m pushing mine to 2025 for next major service. I’ll probably have around 10,000 more miles on clock since 2019 change.

I would be curious if the story is true but seems to me the belts will be fine. It has Hill tensioners and I drive it fairly regularly.


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My manual for a 348 clearly states shows mileage or time which ever comes first. Check the owners manual I'd wager it says the same.

 

1994 Euro manual is every 4 years or 60,000km.

Every 5 years is perfectly fine. 3 years is definitely overkill.

 

It always said that in all of the ones I have seen. Its funny all the urban legends out there about this, and its often shops saying it which is odd. If someone built their 355 you would think they stumbled across that time interval in the manual.

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Every car manufacturer has a recommended Service Interval schedule which is a way of keeping the car up to spec and limiting the liability of the manufacturer. Most of us follow the oil change guidelines because they make sense and today's cars manage the warning lights for required Service.

This debate on the 355 is epic because what the factory recommended doesn't seem to make any real world sense. I have never seen a 355 belt fail by itself. Most of the failures are related to the tensioners and bearings causing a belt to fail. Both are easily addressed with new Ferrari tensioners and Hill Engineering bearing replacements which appear to take those failures off the table. I have not heard of a belt failure related to Hill Engineering bearing replacements.

Now to the rest of reasons to drop the engine. There are many other components to address when the engine is out. Certainly changing the fluids, rebuilding the water pump, addressing the fuel delivery system and resolving any engine leaks just keeps those failures off the table. Those things make sense to do because virtually anything that needs addressing is far easier to do with the engine out.

As to how often you do it? That is up to you.

Based on the Fchat data so far........you are more likely to have a car fire or accident that totals the car before a belt breaks.

 

To be clear you have Hill tensioner bearings. Hill does not make tensioners.

There are some threads around here about tensioners failing. Apparently they fail in a safe way to prevent the belts form jumping teeth, but create quite a racket when you start the car. The discussion on service life was always a 10 - 14 year window IIRC.

There are several discussions on belts and differences between the OEM ones and the non-OEM ones. The consensus has been that the Ferrari demands the belts be cut from the center section of the machine creating them. As the web of the belt nears the edges of the extrusion process, maintaining the proper material profile becomes harder and less consistent. Hence a Ferrari branded belt will be from the center of that production run and far more consistent in profile specs. So the forum stories go anyway......

 

Thanks for clarifying.....I updated the post to support the distinction that the Ferrari tensioners are separate from the Hill tensioner bearings.

 

First - Huge congrats!! I have a US-spec 1995 GTS and it is my "dead guys car" - Have owned it since 2010 and absolutely love it! Like yours mine had 38K miles when I bought it and now has 48K - minimal issues and the ones I have had were not significant. The key is drive it regularly and let it warm up properly before whipping it as well as meticulous/regular maintenance -

Opinions vary on major service frequency - IMHO 3 is super-aggressive and 7 is pushing it. The maintenance rhythm I have been in since I bought mine and the one the previous/original owner followed was Annual=>Bi-Annual=>Annual=>Bi-Annual=>Major // repeat rinse repeat. This has proven advantageous for me to catch and address reactive smaller things quickly and proactively ensure all is well ahead of time. It also allows you to plan and budget for the majors with some wiggle room for "while you are in theres" which while they may increase the cost of the major they will save you money in labor going forward.

Obviously doing a Annual=>Bi-Annual=>Major=Annual=Bi-Annual=Major is great - there is no such thing as "too much" maintenance for a 355 (or any Ferrari for that matter) but most consider that unnecessarily aggressive.

Hope this helps - Congrats and enjoy the car

 

3 years is a joke, 5 years is early and extra due diligence i'd say every 7 years is just fine! Ask any actual 355 expert mechanic, not these forum know it alls..These belts are not going to break in 3-5 years thats just ridiculous and many have gone over 10 years+

 

7 years if you trust the quality of the previous work.

 

And how much preventative maintenance was done in most recent engine out. As the cars age things that get overlooked can time out and cause issues. One full overhaul and thorough engine out should give confidence for an extended time period between dropping it again.

 

Exactly. I did a super engine out and may go 10 years. We changed EVERYTHING.

 

If you are tracking the car regularly:: every 3 years,
If you are running the snot out of it on backroads regularly:: every 4-5 years,
If you drive it like an adult:: 6-7 years.

 

The belts on 355’s rarely break, if ever. I bought my 355 in 2018, had the major done in 2019 at almost 7 years since the last one. Belts looks brand new.


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IMHO, the main reason 355 values were so low for so long is the frequency of the engine-out (in addition to the long list of basically defective factory parts that require one-time expensive fixes -- headers, cats, stickies, etc). Buying a 355 meant buying a recurring financial headache, and that suppressed valuations. But if it becomes accepted practice to go 8-10 years between belt services, values will continue to climb.

It would be great to see people posting detailed pics of their belts and bearings after majors. Pretty easy to tell if the bearings are in good shape -- spin smoothly and quietly, no play, no grease leaking out of the seals, etc. "Do you really have to do a major every 3-5 years" is a very answerable question, just needs the right data.

 

It might be possible but you would need to add miles to the data equation in addition to time. Plenty of owners only put a 1,000 miles (or less) a year on their cars. Even Ferrari doesn't have an answer for owners in that group.....I know I asked.

Owners who put between 5,000 to 10,000 miles a year probably are the real subject group. By this point......23 years since the last model year was made....I would like to think most of the cars have had their engines out at least 4 times. I would also like to believe that the bearings and the tensioners (as well as exhaust and stickies) have been addressed by now. According to Ferrari......the Ferrari tensioners are the weak link in the entire system. The belts will easily go 50,000 miles and since I haven't heard of a single Hill Engineering bearing failure.....I would bet their bearings will easily go 50,000 miles. So if the Ferrari tensioners don't maintain the correct bearing tension.....really bad things happen fast.

Unfortunately......there is no easy way to predict this. According to Ferrari an infrequently used tensioner may be just as prone to failure as one with 50,000 miles on it. There does not seem to be a way to predict a problem other than inspecting the tensioner. It is a Ferrari only part which means it is unlikely to get a retrofit sensor that would measure the tension in real time (how great would that be?).

So we are back to what you are comfortable with. Personally I have only seen one bad tensioner at Ferrari of Washington and it was on a car that had not had a major in 12 years. The tensioner/bearing assembly was "rattling" which is why the owner brought the car in.

I like the idea of replacing the tensioners whether or not they need it or not every other major but most of us would prefer that Ferrari just make a replacement that lasted the life of the car or just let Hill Engineering make the replacement.

 

And once again, Hill Engineering only makes the less expensive roller bearings (#27) on which the Ferrari Tensioners (#22) apply tension. It's the hydraulic tensioners that go bad and need to be replaced with factory units.

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