One year later; 360 Spider as a daily driver (wear and tear)

Just thought I’d write little bit of the experience of using a 360 spider as a daily drive for the past year.

First the good. Well, the GREAT really! I mean, shoot, I get to drive a 360 almost every day! As much as I was worried about the experience of driving a Ferrari on a day to day basis would take the special nature of the car away, it didn’t happen. Truthfully, I don’t get the level of excitement that I got when I first had the car delivered to me that night, but it still is pretty exciting getting in it each morning and firing it up and rowing through the gears on my way to work. Now, I do live in a semi-rural area, so no real traffic jams and it takes me all of 10 minutes to get to work about 6 miles from my house. So, I can’t really comment on trying to drive it day to day in bumper to bumper traffic. But for me, it works just fine.

Mechanically the car has been a rock. (And hit by rocks, but I’ll get to that in ‘the bad’ section ) I’ve put 15,000 miles on it in one year. I’ve gone through one set of tires already. I go around corners hard, brake hard and accelerate hard. No burn-outs or anything stupid, but I still chew up a set of road tires every 15K miles or so. Did the same thing on my past two Corvettes. I have just replaced the battery that stopped taking a charge last week.
As far as maintaining it, it was pretty uneventful. Three oil changes in there, but my mechanic (Jim Lindsey in New Orleans, phenomenal mechanic and a great guy) did have to chase down some glitches with the car, that judging from the service records, had been giving the previous two owners fits that multiple previous Ferrari dealerships couldn’t fix. Jim found the root causes of these problems and fixed them. One was the interior lights would blow a fuse whenever you turned them on. Multiple old records mention replacing the fuse about 4 times, but didn’t fix the problem. Well, it turned out it was a screw for the sun visor bracket that someone at Maranello had put through the dome light wiring, causing a short whenever you turned them on. The second glitch fixed was the bad shifter link bushing described in this post:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=249934

The third inherited problem was the CEL coming on from the Fabspeed cats not being set up correctly during the initial install with the Tubi exhaust. Jim sorted this out immediately and these haven’t been a CEL since then, 14,000 miles later.
The car has been driven almost daily in blasting sun with high humidity, rain and once, even snow!
Note to self (and to you guys) don’t drive a 360 in the snow, it becomes a sled!

Now for the ‘bad’:
The bad is pretty much just the wear and tear the car takes FROM being driven daily in some not so nice conditions.
Interior: This has held up very well regarding the seats and the carpets. They look the same as brand new. The dash, however, is shrinking, due to my mistake in not getting a cover for it as I leave it parked in 100 degree high humidity heat for 10 hours a day during the week. This has cause the front edge of the dash leather to shrink back tight and has popped the defrost vent surrounds loose.
Also, the aluminum painted trim panels on the door and the center console take a beating with keys, shoe scuffs, etc.. and chip pretty easily. Driver’s door more than passengers obviously.
Exterior: The front valence is a mess of rock chips, both old that are toughed up, and new that show the green primer underneath. Also have a few scrapes under the bumper on the black section. I have one rock chip in the middle of the freakin hood!

The black trim pieces on the front edge of the window frames have had all their paint worn off from washing/detailing the car. These were originally a satin-black finish. Now pretty-much bare aluminum.
Something also broke my ‘Pininfarina’ badge in half.
Also found out that someone in the past cut into the moisture barrier in the front trunk working on the AC and didn’t replace it with a new one; just duct taped it up. Well, I put some stereo equipment in the trunk, but water got in there and ruined it.

SO, after one year of driving it and wearing it down, it’s time to make it NEW again!
I’m pulling the dash soon to have it completely recovered as well as having the shop make me a nice sun-protector so that I won’t have to do this again.
Getting the front bumper repainted. NOT placing a clear bra as I don’t like the look and in another year, I’ll just repaint again. (Well, in another year I plan to be selling this car to get a 430) I may also have the front hood repainted if that one rock chip can’t be worked out.
Repainting the two black trim pieces
Repainting the air filter covers and balance box. Nothing I did, they just didn’t look show-room new when I bought the car and I’m bringing it back to showroom condition.
Repainting the door pieces and center console as well.
New defrost vents
New Pininfarina badge
New moisture barrier! I mean really, they only cost $60 from Ricambi! Why duct tape it; fix it right!

And that’s about it. I’ll start a separate topic on pulling the dash (as I haven’t seen anyone here post a DIY topic on that yet) and the general makeover of the car.
And once I have it all back to showroom new, I’ll go back out there and start wearing it down again.
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21K total now. And Mamo, you didn't fail her, just put her off for a year. Mine wasn't hit, remember.

 

Nope, he's very good. It’s just a matter of taking the time to test the wiring one at a time and find the problem. He also sorted out a battery draw on my 328 to three separate shorts. The car now can sit three months (the longest I've let it sit so far) without a battery tender and fires right up.

 

OK, spoke with the upholstery man today. The tear-down starts tonight! I'll try to have a step-by-step post up on yanking a 360 dash as soon as I'm able to pull it.....or break it!

 

And I still thank you for checking it out for me! Too bad you missed that short in the dome wiring...you suck

 

I'm trying to live up to RayJohn's standards (whom I might add, sold me the workshop manuals for the 360 that I'll be using to DO this job)

And I just got nixed by the wife on yanking the dash tonight as she needs to take her Suburban in for routine maintenance and needs to use the truck while it's there.

I also forgot to add one more thing regarding the wear and tear; the switches and handles. These have held up surprisingly well considering all the stories you hear regarding sticky parts. The driver's door handle and window switch had some scratching and pealing of the coating when I got the car, but hasn't deteriorated since then. I was actually surprised that as much as this one sits in the sun and high humidity of South Louisiana, that I don't have any sticky parts forming yet. And I do believe 'yet' is the operative work here. I am planning on stripping out the pair of door handles and window switches and sending them to stick no-more to make it all perfect. Doesn't replicate the rubbery feel, but it'll look so much better.

My ashtray is still prefect because it's been in my closet wile GCalo's cup holder stays in the car.
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