I just put a deposit on my first Ferrari - help please!

My .01....not quite worth .02 these days.

Gut feelings go a long way, but nothing will replace the PPI. Also...small town or not, scanning & emailing of service records is not too difficult a task. I mean, the seller should expect this from any potential buyer.

I found my 328 12 hours away....made the trip...did the research and inspection, test drive and had her shipped home....and even then problems arise. As I'm learning, it is the nature of a 20+ year old ferrari to require TLC.

As for the depost in return for service records....stipulate a right of refusal if the vehicle is not as represented. Document, document, document.

But in the end, caveat emptor and don't let emotions get in the way.

Best of luck and I hope things work out for the best.

FYI...the interior on my 328 was done for just over $4k....and it's REALLY nice.

 

Here's my story .....

5 Years ago I decided to fulfill my dream of buying my first 308 - a 1984 GTSi. I did all the research and found a car in the Philadelphia area. It was low milage and in perfect condition, but lacked one thing - a complete set of records. I flew down to see the car and of course fell in love with it and had a complete brain cramp! I paid the $40K and drove it home.

5 Years later I now have close to $80K into the car. I have rebuilt the water pump, the entire cooling system, a full engine rebuild, new clutch....

Now, I love my Ferrari, BUT I do regret not spending the money back 5 years ago of having the car inspected by a Ferrari mechanic or passing on a car with incomplete records!

Ferrari's are very expensive to repair, and if not maintained properly can really bite you in the ass later on.

Buy with your brains, and then drive with your heart!

Good luck.

 

What a great quote!

 

The very first 308 I was serious enough to buy, the owner refused to sell to me or answer or return any further phone calls when I asked to do a compression test. The car was sold to a fellow in Canada and later was found to have very poor compression. I am so glad I followed through on inspecting that car.

On the other hand, the two 308's I presently own I bought without checking compression, because the sellers were very approachable and the price was comensurate with a car needing some work. Ya know, there was an LP400 for sale on eBay some years back that needed some work, but ran, and I think the BIN price was like $15K? I would have probably gave it a look over and bought it and never hassled over the compression, because the car was at give it away get it out of my yard parts price already. But I would probably never buy something sight unseen unless it was just to fair of a price not to worry about it. I know of one particular 308 bought off eBay sight unseen, and he was so dissapointed with what he recieved, he sold the car at a loss just to make it go away.

Anytime a seller seems nervous to allow you to test drive a car, or inspect it or have it inspected, you need to be suspicious. Some times its just the owners fear that you are only kicking tires or that you may harm thier car, but many more times they are hiding some insidious fault that will remove large volumes of cash from your wallet. And also remember, records mean almost nothing. They can be altered, forged, or not even be for that car. They dont tell you how the car was driven, or in what type of weather or other conditions. They cant tell you if the car was ran without oil after an oil change, if it was oil starved in hard corners, ran hard when cold, or speedshifted/clutch dropped. And dont forget about those records that some owners mysteriously lose. The recipt for the broken cam belt that wrecked the head, the body work recipt from mashing in the nose, or the reciept from Palo Alto to repair the speedometer in 1992 which returned the odometer to zero. The reciepts also wont tell you how many times the speed sensor was run unplugged. Bring your own eyeballs and those of a gearhead friend or a paid mechanic, because your own eyes will lie to you when your buying something like this.

 

How can you assess if the price is fair without having seen it first? Even $15K may be too much for some Ferraris. There are too many scams going on at eBay for me to buy any vehicle unseen. Since they're now even hijacking user names (with 100% feedback) you have absolutely no idea who you're dealing with. Ebay recommends that people inspect their vehicle first because you have no recourse once you have submitted payment in full; especially if you pay by cashier's check or Western Union.

...that comes as no surprise to me. These cars provoke such emotion that people will want to take shortcuts and not inspect the car first. After such an experience you will never want to deal with anything Ferrari ever again. What a shame...

 

Well, $15K wouldnt be a fair price for something I didnt care if I seen first. But say for example I showed you pictures of a 308 that was straight and shiney all around, gave you good close up high resolution pictures, took pics of everything, and everything you seen was decent looking, and the car was complete and would run, had decent looking tires and wheels, had it all, whats its worth to take it as is, sight unseen? $5K??? More???

 

I agree. Unless you're super rich and can laugh off a $25k (or so) mistake, go see the car. Drive it a bit and see what you think. I'm of the opinion that unless you're buying a show car, you'll need to put a few (few??) bucks into it anyway. If it starts, runs, shifts, stops, has a strong clutch, not leaking water or oil (is there oil in the sump?), doesn't smoke, all the electrics work and the suspension is okay, I'd actually skip the PPI. I mean, it's almost 30 years old, what do you expect? Plus you can look at the maintainence records. Are they over an inch high? If he spent that much on it, you can assume you will too. It's a Ferrari.

Buying sight unseen I'd say go for the PPI of course, but to me it's a waste of money if you see/drive the car yourself as long as you have a reasonable checklist to go over.

Ken

 

I see your point. I guess I am trying to say that even if you get high resolution straight and shiny pictures of everything, you still don't know if those are pictures of the same car you just purchased unseen. In short, you are assuming that the seller is honest, while I would suggest to assume that you are getting scammed and then obtain evidence (by seeing the car in person, PPI, etc.) to prove the contrary. Of course, in the end it all depends on how many $$$ you're willing to laugh off if you made a mistake.

 

Well, at some point you just have to trust people a little. The parts of these cars are so expensive, that many times the total value of parts exceed the value of the whole car. Salvage companies like TR purchase this stuff sight unseen all day long and are doing a pretty good buisness selling you and I parts, so its not wholly unrealistic.

However, just about no one in the car buisness hands over cash or a cashiers check, without simultaneously recieving a title card. Salvage dealers generally have a towing company or whomever will pick up the car, recieve the title and pay the owner at the same time the car is recieved. In fact I would imagine a transport company could offer to act as your agent for some kind of fee, but I have never researched this.

 

Is it too late for you to use Escrow.com? I used it to buy my mondi sight unseen from california. I did do a PPI however but was prepared to fly out anyways.

 

I talked to a few local guys as well as Ferrari Quebec. Again, I was told to go look at it, drive it, and given a few pointers on how the car should feel. So I'm off. I'll bring the camera and snap a few pictures. Thanks for all the tips! Any other advice is welcome. I'm thrilled with this thread as I'm feeling more level-headed now. I'll post my results Sunday.

 

I think the handing off of a Ferrari from one loving long time owner to an enthusiatic new one is a special moment......have fun and definately post pics!

First stop should be for gas, 20-50W oil and big fire extinguisher...LOL!

 

re: PPI's & car Auctions:

Guys, this brings up a very stupid question of mine...

at these fancy barrett - Jackson auctions where they pay 6 figures for restomod super bees dusters or whatever...do the bidders get to do a PPI on the car or just take a look at the car's exterior during the preview day..... the few car auctions I went to...you could look the car over, maybe, maybe, if you bothered them enough and they thought you looked like a rich guy they would actually get somebody to start the car but that was it and everything was sold as is...the auctioneer was not even responsible if the documentation was forged or if it really turned out NOT to be actually owned by Barbara Striesand! YOU LOSE.

 

Ok. I'm at the US border and set up for the night. I thousand thanks to Steve King for passing Tom Lockwood's phone number (he's the local F-club president). I called him today and he knows the car personally. He said it was one of the nicest 308's he's seen and it was very well taken care of. The owner took pride and did, in fact, service the car (including a major service) at Ferrari Quebec. We chatted some more and, needless to say, I'm a little more optimistic about the car now.
Btw, Tom has a 456 GT for sell if anyone's in the market.

 

AHA! Toronto308... see what I mean about the research. All helps in your making a wise decision and one your comfortable with. That's great news about the car and I can't wait to see the pics. Let us know. Blaine.

 

Here's the car. Mike (the seller) was really great. I first looked at the car, then he fired it up and we went for a 20 minute ride. It felt okay but not so spritely as my Mini. There was a little shudder but he said the tires needed to warm up as it had been sitting for a few weeks. I then looked at all the records and everything is up to date. The maintenance was documented impeccably, made of a binder including a listing of each maintenance item done from first delivery to the last oil change last year. The second section contained copies of each invoice, the third section had the original invoices. He did, in fact, spend close to $9,000 on the interior which included new switches and plates (but not new floor mats?!). The final section had published articles of the 308, plus a few car magazine issues including original 1975 issues of R&T debuting the 308, and a 1978 issue reviewing the '79 model being sold. Nice touch.
Lastly, Mike gave me the keys and said I should get to know the car personally so he told me to take off and drive the car alone. Okay! I drove it for about 45 minutes and did just about everything I could think of. The shudder went away, which boosted my confidence, so I let go of the wheel, shift early, shift late, hard braking, etc. The car was solid, though the power was less than I was expecting from my first F-car test drive. Taking advantage of some lovely roads and no traffic, I tried a standing start from 3rd gear. It pulled well, so I went back to Mike's and told him I was satisfied.
The car is nice but definitely a 5-footer. Get closer and you see some scuffs where the roof goes in, some paint hazing, a small ding in the back, what looks like rust (see pic) and about 5 or 6 stone chips in the front.
The last major was done at 68,000 miles but, interestingly, was spread over 4 separate services, supposedly to spread the cost. The car was taken in once a month for four months in 2001. I checked and all items were done except a valve adjustment. That was 5 years and 10,000 miles ago. I told him the car needed another major service right away. His reply was that at the last oil change (last summer) Ferrari Quebec did an inspection and said all was well, so he left it. I said I didn't want my first Ferrari experience to be a bad one and I would have to do a service, if even just for piece of mind. Although he was adamant the car was good for another 5,000 miles or couple of summers, he offered to split the cost of the major 50/50. Assuming the major will cost around $5,000, I then suggested it would be simpler to just take $2,500 off the car. He agreed, selling the car for $22,500. What do you think?
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She's a beauty! Looks like you made the right decision - congratulations!

 

you totally scored. even with the extra put in for the major you're still up on the car. good luck!!

 

That is a good price! Welcome to the club, now drive her before the white stuff starts flying!

 

Thanks to all who helped me out here at Ferrarichat! Big thanks to Blainewest, Steve King and those who helped me with this. I'm scheduled to pick her up (Canadian) Thanksgiving, but can't wait. There's a tour being organised for the end of the month by the locals here in Toronto and I'm dying to go!

 

Looks good!

You cannot find the carpet so it is hard to renew....it's OK that original is still there!

 

I think you did great. Enjoy the car!

 

If you haven't already jumped on it, do it man! Nice car and a good deal at $22.5K. You may not need another major service. Just change the timing belt and leave it at that, if everything is running well.

Congrats, my man. I'm enjoying my '78 GTS that I picked up earlier this summer. You'll love it. And just get used to the fact that it is not the most powerful F-car out there. This car is not about drag racing everyone at the stop light 0-60. It is a road car, a fine handling machine, beautiful lines that makes wonderful music for the ears. Enjoy it as such. You did well.

 

Car appears to have Vermont plates.

Correct?

 

Just some questions from comparing your photos.. although US models may be different..

Is that cam cover from a 308 GTSi or QV?

I thought the sparewheel was zippered in the 308 GTS? Did you get the spare as well?

Greg.

*edit* hmm.. maybe not. Just saw some photos of another US 308 and it looked similar