Has the tide turned on depreciation for 355? have they started increasing in value?

SRI? I see labor for a gold for a gold kit and $1700 for a 355 2.7 Supremo, plus a lot of BS items like checking all interior lamps.... Most of the labor charges on what is labeled page 1 of 2 in your 2nd post aren't typical engine major items.

 

Here's a standard kit pricing:

New Major Service Kit Ferrari 355 w 2 Fuel Pumps T Rutlands Ferrari Parts | eBay

 

I'm sure that whomever did the Major and the work is well aware of the price difference between the vendors. Most mechanics have their own markup and can get parts below the cost that's on the page.

Mechanics all have their policies. Usually there is a warranty on parts and labor for a year. That's a nice thing to have. If I bring in my own parts and ask my mechanic to install them, he doesn't have to warranty them. He also doesn't have to install them either. 10% price markup on the kit isn't unreasonable. They make some of their money on the markup.

 

I don't know what you guys are saying - that next time I bring my car for service I should expect mechanic to sell parts at wholesale? (btw for those who did not follow, those bills are not from my mechanic, but from previous owner)

 

From what I understood from discussion with the previous owner, the car had a problem with injectors intermittently misfiring and that problem was fixed by replacing connectors. Connectors are known to go bad from repeated plugging and unplugging so that explanation made sense to me. The car ran great when I got it.

Other charges were for replacing a torn CV joint and a new battery. Checking lights and replacing a burnt out light bulb I think is reasonable.

 

I don't either. If you take a 328 to a specialist for all the work it needs, it won't be cheap either. I don't think there'd be more than a $1000/year difference between the 'low maintenance' 328 and the 'high maintenance' 355 if the same level of service and repair is done to both.

If $1000/year is a deal breaker, a (any) Ferrari is probably not a good idea.

 

You know how much hair gel I can buy with that?

 

You just brought up a really good point there.
Stop buying coffee from outside, $3 per cup a day will save you $1000 per year!

 

Not my car and if the owner was ok with it that was what mattered. There is just a lot of stuff done there that goes well beyond an engine out major.

Hopefully all that will be to your advantage.

 

$1000/year is how much toy spend on gas to drive a car 10k mi/year @30mi/gal @ $3.00/gal.

 

$1K/year is not a deal breaker. My point is that racking up $20K-30K repair bills in one year does not seem out of place in F355 ownership. And averaging $5-$8K per year on upkeep and maintenance for a car that is professionally maintained is pretty common. May be some get lucky, or fix their cars themselves. Just based based on what I've seen I would classify F355 as a "maintenance nightmare". I think this will keep dragging their values down.

 

johnk, what are you suggesting? Spend $1000 to fix the car but don't drive? hahaha
I still think my suggestion works better if those of you can't afford to spend $1000 per year to maintain Ferrari.

 

You hit the nail on the head here. Like anything mechanical from a Ferrari to a moriseiki cnc there is a age at which it's maintenance goes from "factory authorized" to "independent specialist" then to its final resting spot of "owner maintained".
Once a majority of the cars fall into the latter you can expect a change in prices.
This is one lesson I have learned over the years in my family which has been in this crazy industry since after the great depression in the late 1930s. It has repeated time after time.

 

Just my real world analysis. I think people forget how much they spend on there every day cars. $1k/y for gas. $400 more or less for tires every 3-5 years. Insurance? Repairs? Oil changes? I know I don't pay attention to it. I stopped worrying about things I can't control long ago. Besides, the way the country is going if I run out of $$$ before I kick the government will take care of me. At least that's what I'm counting on. All you younger guys out there, your social security taxes are paying for my F355. Thank you. Couldn't have done it without you. Now for the beach house.

 

A well-sorted and maintained F355 is by no means a "horror" car. Every Ferrari has it's own innate problems. For example, as the 360s and 430s age they are developing many of the same issues as the F355 with cats, exhaust headers, etc. You have to drop the engine on the 30K major on the F355, but not on the 360. You need to drop the engine for a clutch replacement on a 360, but not an F355. You get my point.... Gone are the 308- and 328-days where we didn't have to contend with loads of extraneous equipment that seems to only cause problems.

If you guys want to talk about depreciation, wait until the 458 Italias come off of factory warranty. Almost all major parts are unit replacement only. Say one of the two clutches in the 458 transmission/F1 clutch unit wears, you'll need to replace the entire unit (there is no option or factory defined methodology to replace just the clutch) which retails for about $91K. Can you imagine what that is going to do for resale after warranty expiration? Although I'm sure a few highly experienced Ferrari Techs will develop a way to repair such a problem. However, now that all diagnostic data is fed from the given Ferrari dealer to the computer servers at FNA in Englewood Cliffs, NJ (i.e., no more SDxs), this could prove problematic.

 

Agree 1000% ^^^

 

$1K/y for gas? Wow, you must not drive a lot John ;-)

I spend $400-500 per month on gas....

 

Yes you would. If you needed the money and all the other cars on the market were in that range. Things happen.

 

Exactly... can imagine being the owner of a 458 and having to attempt to do the type of work that 355 owners can do with their cars... Not going to be easy or pretty when the 458 starts to depreciate and the nightmare there will make the 355 look like a walk in the park.

Thanks, but I will keep the "nightmare" 355.

 

i agree

 

True - But I don't and they aren't

 

Barring either something rather catastrophic happening (engine for example) or an extremely unfortunate series of repairs (cats+clutch+???) I am having a hard time imagining how you would rack up $20-30K in one year.

I pay either side of $1200 a year for minors and fixes and budget $10K every three years for majors. I lost $25K in depreciation in two years on my 997 Porsche + maintenance and tires ($$$).

To me 355s are the last of the Ferrari's with a certain amount of soul to them. No slam against the newer cars - they are beautiful, fast and more reliable and easier to maintain but the 355s have a certain soul to them - sound/feel/smell/look - that the newer cars don't have.

If they do start to come up a bit in value (specifically GTSs and GTBs most likely) that will no-doubt be offset by the maintenance costs but being able to own a 355 GTS at a relatively "flat" rate would be a great scnerio.

 

I spoke to a tech recently and supposedly the dealers will be able to work on the DCT soon rather than just swap them out for new ones under warranty. I've heard new DCT is like 37k not 91K. I do think the 458 and Cali are going to drop like rocks once many of them fall out of factory warranty or fall into the hands of people who fail to purchase the expensive factory extended warranties. Also with the 458 replacement on the horizon and the car being out since MY 2010 they are due to drop. At this time, I would not own a Ferrari DCT without a factory warranty or factory extended warranty.

 

What? $20-30k bills are what you get when you take a F355 to the Ferrari dealer and say "whatever it needs." Buy one with decent aftermarket headers, no cats and drive it at least every 2 weeks. Use the DIY parts source/parts sale threads when you need something. Major is about $6k every 5 years. If the car is costing you more than $2500/yr to maintain your doing something wrong. IMHO

 

Maybe this thread should be re-titled to include "US market only" because apparently what happens in the rest of the world is irrelevant BS - despite the fact we are talking about Italian cars which are bought and sold everywhere in the world...

Absolutely spot on. The bottom line is it seems far more 355s have fallen into that last category in the US than anywhere else. As a result their value is unlikely to recover much.

I think this point is extremely relevant. I mean, any sane person who can by a car for $45k will baulk at the kind of maintenance costs you guys are hit with. Because at the end of the day it's probably still a $45k car.

BUT, if you had to pay $150k to get into the same car and it then cost what it costs to keep in good factory shape, but you do that knowing that when you went to sell it it would still be worth at least that same $150k and possibly more it may change your entire attitude, right?