Ferrari of North America's class act move

I might have mentioned this story once a long time ago, but I never created a thread about it because I wasn't sure if FNA or my dealership preferred that I not mention it.

I bought my first Ferrari in May of 2001. It was a '97 355 Spider. As many people know, the exhaust manifolds on 355s are/were known to cause problems. So one day while driving the car, I noticed something wasn't right. I took it to Cauley Ferrari and had Joe, their service manager, have a look. After inspecting the car he knew what was wrong, but to both of our surprises, it turns out that both exhaust manifolds were shot and needed to be replaced.

The car was out of warranty and he said I was looking at about $4k each, as well as $1k in labor. He told me "let me talk to my rep at Ferrari of North America" and see if they'd be willing to cut you some kind of deal or work with you in anyway". So he calls me the next day and says "I have good news for you, FNA is picking up the tab on both new exhaust manifolds. All you have to do is pay for the labor".

That was an unbelievably classy move on their part. I'm sure part of it had to do with the fact that I was on the list for the 360 at the time and had the potential to become a longtime & loyal customer in their minds.

I just wanted to share a positive story about Ferrari & FNA since it popped in my head while surfing Fchat just now. Better late than never and I seem to read more disgruntled and/or upset stories about FNA than good ones, so why not share my positive story.

 

that is great. there is humanity out there at all levels. good going and enjoy the Ferrari

 

That is good stuff!

 

All emissions related parts , such as the headers are gaurenteed until 80,000 miles.

It is the law. They had no alternative.

 

Most likely, another part of it was that your car was still under a federally-mandated emissions warranty

 

good forbid they stand behind parts that are known to be defective.........

 

I had a 355 spyder, too, and one of my headers blew one day. I had it trucked to Ferrari of Atlanta, who replaced both headers. I was told that they "had" to do this, even though the car itself was out of warranty--that it was an emissions issue.

FOA did, however, pay my trucking cost, for my trouble. (It was only about $150)

The header was required, but the trucking cost was a nice gesture.

 

I've found FoA to be a top-notch operation... I enjoy dealing with them.

Sounds like JeffB probably should NOT have been charged for the labor under the emissions warrantee!

 

For a second, I thought this was about a class action lawsuit. Oops. Nice to hear everything worked out well in the end.

 

IIRC all vehicles sold in the us have a federally mandated 8 year/80,000 mile emmisison warranty from the early 90's onward.......therefore a 1997 would be under this warranty in 2001.

Cracked exhaust headers would be covered......no ?

Doesn't seem like FNA and the dealer did anything out of the ordinary which is deserving of praise.

 

Tru Dat.

 

LoL, I did not know that. Here I am the whole time thinking "I can't believe they hooked me up that much".

 

I went through a similar scenario with my newly aquired BMW M5. My car is out of warranty, and BMW still approved some Goodwill repairs on it. Its just the right thing to do, even if it was not emission related.

 

Maybe it's American math, but wouldn't a 97 be covered until 2005?

 

HAHA I'm an idiot....Makes me a true Newbie Rookie

 

You mean the very first line of the OP's thread?

That could mean 2006, but I'm going to say sometime before the car turned 8.

 

Disregard my previous comment. My brother logged in as me and messed around. I'm just an observer here...My apologies

 

Exactly right, because my direct experience is that F of NA is the complete opposite when there is no federal law about it.

The goodwill comes out when they are forced to, under a trained gun.....

 

Napolis repled to one of my posts!

I'm not worthy!

 

A BMW dealer may go to bat for you to replace an expensive item because "Home Office" will pay 1005 of it and you pay labor. They make more money that way, rather than you spending $300 on after market parts.

Dealerships do not try to save you money, it's not in their best interest at all.

 

So it's in their best interest to have an unhappy customer? Sorry, but I don't buy it. If the factory will cover a repair - regardless of if they are obligated to or if they are doing so as goodwill, that's a win-win for both the dealership and the customer. And any dealer that won't go to bat for a customer when the circumstances call for it is not doing their job.

 

No. it's in the stealership's best interest to have the unwitting customers happily believe that a repair was done out of generosity, rather than an obligation. It's all about the spin-marketing of something they would have to do.......sorta like taking credit for "willing" a bowling ball to fall downward to the floor when released. It was gonna happen that way anyway, so why not claim it was your doing, if the observer knows no better?

 

...you should go back to the dealership and demand your money back for the labor you should not have paid for in the first place.....Unbelievable....

 

What color is the sky in your world? It seems reasonable to help a customer and to get as much for them as possible but that's a money losing situation.

Sales staff
service techs
service writers
parts guys
department heads
managers

all have targets to achieve. If you go too long with out hitting the constantly rising bar, you'll be fired.

I've had "out of warranty" work done under warranty by a couple of deals only because they got big brother to pick up the tab. If the dealership had to pay $5,000 for my cats, they simply wouldn't have.

By helping me in that situation they helped themselves. If they couldn't help themselves, they wouldn't have helped me.

 

I won't argue that, nor did I. Regardless if the dealership is honest about who's paying for the repair - and IMO they absolutely should be - they still want the customer leaving happy.

How? The factory pays for the parts and normally (though apparently not in this specific case) pays for the labor. Granted it may not be as much profit as if the entire job were retail, but it's still profit. Hardly a money losing situation.

Bottom line here as far as I'm concerned...we all know it's far less expensive to retain an existing customer than to gain a new one. Any business that doesn't recognize that and prioritizes maximizing short term profit without regard for what happens long term is setting themselves up for a fall.

Then again, maybe I'm dead wrong. After all, the three dealerships I ran only had a 75% customer retention rate.