360 owners... have you broken your door handle before??

No door handle problem here. I think the key is to be careful when pulling on something in an italian car. But seriously, I've given a lot of rides to kids and teenagers during a charity fundraiser and they tug on the inside handle hard enough to make me wince. No damage whatsoever though.

 

had my 360 since 2000. no problems with the car at all. * knock on wood *

 

I had the same problem with the pasenger door a week after delivery, the dealer said it was a pretty common problem, it has not been a problem since.

Adam

 

Haven't had my 360 for too long but have not had any problems. I have a 9 year old who is pretty tough on the handles again, no problem.

 

I have not had the problem yet but it should happen soon. Most of the problems I read about the 360 seem to happen to my car before too long. I am sure it is an easy fix.

 

Wayne Mello had the same problem on his 360.

 

No problem on my end either, thank goodness. But I have heard it happening to a few others.

 

We had a 360 at the shop with 900 miles on it, it came in with 1 bad door handle, the other broke the next day, so we replaced both.

It was not the handle that broke, but the cable retainer on the handle.

It is an all day fix! (pain in the ass)

 

Owners, what about the ashtray.

A friend had his 2003 delivered in April and on the day of delivery the ashtray was broken. The car hasn't returned to the dealer yet so it hasn't been checked by the dealer.

I have tried everything possible to figure out how it is supposed to actually retract but I can't get it to work. I did take the little flags off of it because the friend felt they looked tacky (and I have to agree)

Just curious if this is something that has happened to others.

 

I had the broken ashtray problem. The lid will not stay closed and that's when I found out the bottom was broken. Chalk it up to brittle italian plastic. Other bits seems fine.

 

2400 miles and none of these problems have cropped up.......hopefully they won't

 

i have had three 360's and no problems except for the clutch sleeve that was changed on the 00 model which was under warranty.

 

I have an 03 360 with 1300 miles on it and no such problems. Once on startup it was very obvious something was not firing right. I shut it off and tried again and it was fine. The check engine light came on and stayed on for about the next three times that I drove it with no other symptoms and then all of a sudden it cleared itself. The dealership told me to always wait for the check OK to come on before starting it up and said that it could have been the problem. Since then no problems.

 

Sometimes I find that during the winter, my 360 does not start on the first turn of the key. But then when i fire it up immediately afterwards, the car is fine. Is this because the circuits may be cold or something?

 

Here in the UK, I only had the problem once when the weather was freezing. By the time I got to the dealer the car had warmed up, the door worked fine and I looked an idiot!!

No problems since.

 

a rat running??? – I had a click/clack noise in my 360 Modena F1 when I drove over speed bumps or with high speed over uneven roads – finding such noises and getting them fixed is a hassle – I am very picky and attentive to engine/chassis noises ... – here is a rundown of what was done

- tightened all suspension bolts

- insulated air tube & oil cooler lines – this was done by adding some fasteners so that the lines would not hit the end of a bolt sticking out of the engine sub-frame

- insulated engine trim panels & belly pans

- replaced some of the sway-bar bushing / ball joint parts – the bushings are nylon and can start to squeak – this fixed most of the click/clack. Note that there is a thread in the old FChat about the sway bar noise in 2003 360’s too.

locating the source of the noise is a pain - credit to FoSeattle for sticking with it and getting it fixed – they even bought a special device that allows the mechanic to attach a microphone to suspension parts and listen to noise while driving in order to sort it out

I believe that the majority of the noises have been caused by the sway bars and the rest has been pushed to the forefront by large speed bumps in font of my house and my preference for curvy back roads. I probably have the best sorted out cat in that aspect, i.e. along the lines if you search for stuff you will find something.

 

well the sway bar transfers load from a wheel on one side to the other - it prevents exessive body roll - during normal operation the sway bar is not loaded - if a wheel is pushed up the sway bar is loaded through a torosional load - when this happens it turns in the bushings at witch point it generates the sound by sort of braking loose

because the wheels are pushed up / down constantly on bumpy roads the sound from the two bushings in front and the two in the rear generate a constant clicking from all over the place - this is made more complicated by the fact that the noise is transfreered by the frame throughout the car

I actually was able to simulate it with one wheel by jacking up the car - putting a wood block under the wheel - dropping the car slowly on the block - you can actually hear the clack coming from the bushings once the torrosions bar is loaded

one theory is that during transportation on see the salt water gets into the bushings and disolves the lubrication - overall this is not a big problem it is only anoying

however if this is not the cause of the problems we still can go back to the rats theory - not sure what the solution would be poison?

my car had 200miles

what tires do you run - P Zeros? they have a tendency to feel that way on my car (have you checked tire pressure - you might want to experiment with the pressure)

 

Mine did not break, but it somehow got loose and fell off. No big deal was able to fix it with a screw driver in about five minutes

 

I have run into a couple of 360 door handel problems. Most of the time it's just the plastic clip that comes apart at the handel itself. It seems that the angle of the cable going into the handel is one that puts to much stress on the clip and it breakes or the streaches the plastic so it doesn't hold anymore.

As far as the funny nosie..I'd have a look at the battery hold down. Somtimes if the battery was replaced with an aftermarket unit,the hold down does clamp the battery inplace tight enough,causeing it to rattel and slide around a bit.

 

My 2001 360 has 15,000 on it and the drivers door handle has broken three times. Usually, it is an uncareful valet, but there is no question that it is very fragile and a bad design.

There are other things that have gone wrong, including:

1) Clutch and throw-out bearing: 7500 miles
2) Tires: Rear 9000 miles
3) Brake pads: 11,000 miles (with rotors)
4) Battery: 15,000 miles
5) F1 pump (stranded): 12,000 miles
6) F1 relay(s): 15,000 miles
7) Grounding problems: 1,500 miles
8) Misc check engine light coming on requiring dealer visit: 4 times
9) Popping out of gear: 10,000 miles (new brain, etc installed)
10) Shift brain adjustment: 3 times

The only thing that has cost me are the brake pads and the service.