Is there any reason I should avoid first year 360 (6-speed)?

I bought a 99 and love it and it was MUCH nicer than a lot of 02-04 cars i looked at condition wise and still only had 16k miles on it. I have put about 500 miles on it in the week and change i have owned it and it has been PERFECT

My indy mechanic said the lack of precats in a 99 is a plus both from a maintenance standpoint and HP to the wheels, not sure if that is true but the car is great

condition and upkeep count. I have an F1 but with a 6 speed i would have zero concerns of a 99 vs a newer one. Just make sure the campaigns were done (Variators especially) and then happy motoring.

 

For "longer" term winter storage you can just turn off the kill switch in the front trunk.

Since you are in Norway I am not sure prices you get quoted from the mostly US based people on this site are useful to you. How about calling your local dealership or independent shop?

Not much, you can always climb out the side window If it is for the winter storage - don't want to do that on a daily basis, though. I do that in my trailer when I take my 360 race car to events - no other way, and not difficult.

 

No reason to avoid a 99, I've had three, no issues with any of them. As far as the US version, the 99 has no pre cat in the headers, so a little more snap and sound.

 

Recent quote from a US dealer: (I just purchased an '03 F1)

Major- minimum $3200
clutch $6282
flywheel $1800
rear brake pads and rotor- $1100 to 1400

I am guessing it is probably more expensive(?) in your part of the world.

 

Here are servicing costs from my local Ferrari specialist here in North Italy.

PROCEDURE COST
Full service including cam belts (15000 km 3 to 5 years) 500/700 €
Change the oil and filter (15000 km or 1 year) 257 €
Replace the air filter (15.000 km) € 350
Replace clutch (manual transmission) € 2,445
Replace the brake pads only € 610
Replace the brake pads and discs € 1,883
Replace the drive belt camshaft (30.000 km, 3 years) € 1,026
Replace the straps to the water pump, alternator, etc. (3 years) 600 €
Service Air Conditioning (2 years) € 80

My costs last year (minus taxes, fuel, etc.) were 1557 € including new AGM battery, changing the transmission and engine mounts, annual service and fluid change, replacement brake disks and pads, replacement clutch pump, new air horns, and even the cost of wax and some cleaning materials. I do the work myself using ordinary home shop tools. It isn't difficult if you have normal "hobby" car skills.

I don't even own a battery tender. My car sometimes sits for a month and starts up just fine. For winter storage I simply turn off the battery switch and two or three months later, it starts immediately without any kind of charging.

My garage door is only 5cm wider than the wing-span of my mirrors and it isn't hard to use; I just have to be careful. The interior space is wide enough to open the driver's door. I'm not sure I'd want to keep a car in a place where I would have to climb in through the window to drive it a couple of times a week, but I'm pretty old.

You're going to really like the 360. Mine has been reliable, cheap to run, and a HUGE amount of fun. Keeping $10K available on short notice is a good idea with an understanding that should you run into some really bad luck you might be facing a $20K bill. That would be a heart breaker for most of us, and I certainly hope it will never happen to me. But if it does, at least I won't have to sell my house or abandon the car.

By the way, if you avoid the spider and the F-1 transmission your reserve cash is much more likely to stay safe and your ownership experience is more likely to be positive. Many of the posts on this forum which express disappointment and/or frustration have to do with either the spider top or the F-1 transmission, partially because fixing them is expensive and sometimes difficult and time consuming. Plus the average good hobby mechanic will quickly find himself running out of talent or specialized (expensive) tools when trying to repair a spider top or F-1 transmission.

 

As Mozella said above.. with a 3 Pedal car you're going to eliminate much of the need for an SD2... and it will be more reliable.

As far as storage, if its in a heated garage and you're storing it for the winter.. why not unlock it, crack the windows and remove the battery for the winter and keep it on a maintainer in the house? The only thing you'll have to keep are the radio codes. It's been posted here that not running it all winter is probably just as bad as starting it for 3-5 minutes to keep the fluids moving.

My car is a 99' Euro and I'm soooo happy. It has the challenge headers with no precats to disintegrate. Belts are not an issue at all. I do 5 year rule so for me $2300 every 5 years. Not bad at all. You can do most of the work yourself if inclined with normal hand tools. Just have an independent mechanic handy who can do the work if needed.

Although.. if you really don't like the cars design.. why not just save for the 430? It's always best to get exactly what you want. Although I will say if you haven't driven a 360 you should. Note the torque won't be there with low RPMs as in other cars.
Ask locally for pricing. Giving US prices for parts is misleading unless you order from ricambi, ferrparts or t-rutland. Definitely checkout Eurospares. You could import the parts from these suppliers if needed. Repairs are like Porsches in my experience. If its broken you'll fix it and the issue will go away. My car has been great. It sits during the week, I start it on saturday.. drive it on the weekend, put it away on sunday night.. repeat. Oh, and replace the battery every 3-4 years or so. That will keep it young and your alternator happy.

 

Well, maximum torque won't be available at low rpm, but I would say that my 360 is very "tractable", as the car testers like to say. I wouldn't say it's particularly "peaky", at least compared to some cars and motorcycles I've owned in years past. And because it's pretty light and has a large and powerful engine, compared to the typical European econo-box, it's far from a gutless wonder.

In other words, although the 360 won't offer you it's best performance at low rpm, you can certainly drive it around in a low key manner without feeling like you're constantly having to row through all the gears. It definitely keeps up with traffic even if you let the rpm sag pretty low and it pulls smoothly without complaint even from very low rpm. As a matter of fact, I'm impressed with how smooth it is at low rpm and how willing the engine seems.

In contrast, I do a LOT more shifting when driving my Fiat Grande Punto Sport. In other words, I have to thrash my Fiat to some degree in order to keep up with local traffic doing plenty of shifting and lots of full throttle. Of course, I live in Italy where everyone thinks they're a racing driver. The Ferrari does just fine on our local twisty Italian roads on the way to the grocery store running up and down the rpm band in 3rd gear.

 

Moz, It is hard to imagine a 20K surprise in a reasonably documented 360 gated manual coupe IMO. OP do some research on the car to combat "bad luck".

The worst scenario I can imagine to get close to that is a real major-service (3-5K) with new tires (2K) and a clutch w/new flywheel (6-7K), new brakes/rotors all the way around(?), fried alternator cable replaced with Ferrari part ($3K!)

...ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!!

Pretty rare if there is any documented history at all and the car has been cared for. The big surprise in my mind would be an engine that is near the end of it's service life (we don't know what that is IMO) so of course we protect against this with PPI's and documentation.

Good luck!

 

I am starting to tire of the torque discussion. WTF are you guys talking about? Clearly I don't have the same reference system as some.
I had a 1970 FJ40 Toyota Land Cruiser with the "Cast Iron Wonder" in it...I could put it in gear and get out of the car and walk beside it and it would go up inclines like this too. We used to do Chinese Fire Drills in the desert like this and jump out of the car and run to catch back up to it and everyone get back in! Good times but I digress. That's torque! My 360 has as much or more than that!

What are you guys comparing to?
Are you saying you can't fry the tires in first and second?
Are you saying that when you depress the pedal that the car cant out accelerate your expectations?
Where are you driving Bonneville Salt Flats?
Are you trying with traction control off?
Is this observation made more by those with paddle shifters or us gated manual guys?
I admit I have limited experience with sports cars and this is my first mid engine car but I feel a wonderful linear torque from clutch engagement to redline.

This absence of torque phenomenon is clearly a relative thing! ;-)

 

Kevin, its the "perceived pull" of the car when you step on it. At low RPMs, the 360 doesn't have the kick in the pants. i.e. below 4-5kRPM. Its docile. In contrast my 928 has at low RPMS a tremendous amount of "pull". I feel if I had a rope I could pull my house. While the 928 tops out at what 3-3500 RPM and mellows, the 360 just builds and builds and builds. I don't mind because I can have a docile car around town and then have a savage beast at high RPMs if I want. The more and more power the high you wind it is cool!

 

Not hard at all. Failed heat exchanger or failed belt tensioner. Either of those is likely to be 10K to 20K. I am not saying that they are common but it happens. There is a 550 that developed a hole in the cylinder liner and had to be completely rebuilt. Not sure if they determined the exact cause. None of this is unique to a '99; it can happen with any year.

 

Relative stuff I agree. I must be too old with worn out reflexes to participate in the conversation because I have just enough time before my tach goes vertical to plan my next shift to ensure that it is executed with poise, certainty and that my line is clear and that I am not being watched! That's why I asked if this discussion gets more legs from the paddle set since they have way more time to ponder such rubbish such as... "Gee, my car could use a little more torque". puh-leeze!

 

You are probably right but proper service should protect against this type of worry. See recent thread of guy who went on the preemptive replacement of his heat exchanger (wasnt it a 99?) only to find that it looked as good as a new one out of the box. Hill Engineering tensioners are serialized for traceability and authorized dealers should know how to install the parts. I believe their work would be insured?

 

You won't...especially if it is a stick.

 

Why would stickshift or paddle shift have different torque? The gearbox makes 0 Nm....

 

Sorry, it's just my take on which driver has more time to contemplate the often mentioned amount of available torque. I postulate that the paddle drivers have more time to think about it since they have already issued a command to the shifting computer with a squeeze of the lever and then the brain has extra time to think about how much power they are laying down and how much time they have to get ready for another squeeze and issue another command to the shifting computer.

This is in contrast to the gated manual driver who may be engaged in other activities between the gear changes (than pondering the amount of available torque). I, for instance, have about 2 seconds to shift into second before I reach redline and in that time I need to make sure my feet are ready and that I have a firm grip on the shifter and process and execute a less than intuitive release of the throttle to match revs for a nice gear change. If it happened any faster I don't know what I would do.

The beautiful balance of horsepower and available torque from this point allows me an extra second to do it again to get to third and then it gets more comfortable from there adding a little more time for each subsequent up-shift. This equals more time to enjoy the crescendo of my exhaust above 4K RPM but with this also more of a chance to loose my license forever.

I guess what I am trying to say is that if you think the car doesn't have enough torque you are driving it wrong or selecting the wrong gear for the situation. Its the jockey, not the pony!