458 What's happened to this trim piece?

First post, so many thanks to the Admins for allowing me to join.

I'm looking to buy my first Ferrari and I've just been sent some photos of one of the cars I have lined up to see. One thing that has caught my eye is the carbon trim piece (UK car) to the side of the steering wheel - it doesn't look like it's fitted correctly.

Firstly, is it badly fitted/broken and secondly why might it be like this? Is it a sign that the car has been pulled apart and put together badly?

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It's not fitted together properly. It might be like that because they broke a tab taking it off of the dash. Are the paddle shifters carbon fiber? If so, that's aftermarket.

 

If they are long, they are aftermarket, there was an option for carbon fiber paddle shifters, but they are the same length as the standard ones.

 

Not true, my 488 came from the factory with carbon paddle shifters.

 

Looking at the spec sheet, the carbon fibre options were the dashboard inserts, central bridge and driver zone+LEDs. No paddle shifter option on there.

If the inserts are original, what reason could there be for having to remove them? Just a bit worried there's something off about the car - otherwise it looks great. I was thinking maybe the trim piece had to be removed if someone were to fit a mileage blocker, which obviously would be a red flag. I'm probably worrying unnecessarily but want to be sure.

 

This is a 458.

 

No, you aren't worrying unnecessarily in my opinion. I would want to know the answer to that question as well and if they didn't have a good explanation, I'd probably pass. It could be innocent or it could be something very bad like you mentioned. Can you post a link to the car?

 

458 option CRPK Carbon Fiber Sport Pkg has the carbon fiber paddles as part of that pkg. Look on a 458 order guide and in a 458 brochure it shows carbon paddles.
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I think I 'may' have got to the bottom of it, or at least a possible/probable explanation. There's an entry on the Ferrari mainframe for the car that reads 'NQS instrument panel node'. I'm guessing the instrument panel has been removed at some point by the dealer, during which that trim piece could have been dislodged/broken.

I'm going to look at the car later today and see what I find.

 

Paddles were an option, the wheel trim is aftermarket....

 

I think this picture shows what is behind that trim piece. I spent about 30 minutes on diagrams to see exactly what it was, but I couldn't locate the parts. More pictures here:
https://www.macarbon.com/install_guides/ferrari/458/macarbon_ferrari_458_Interior_Instrument_Cluster_Installation.pdf

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Thanks, Kent. Well, I've just got back from looking at the car and it's fantastic. That trim piece isn't loose and actually looks worse in the photo than in real life. I spoke to the technician about it and he just said "It's Italian. I've seen much worse straight out of the factory". All in all I'm happy with it so hope to get the deal done later in the week. Very, very excited!