Need help. Can’t open the oil cap on my California.

BINGO!

 

It does look like a premature failure with only 130k miles. I've never had a stuck cap before either. It certainly wouldn't hurt to make sure the O-ring has a bit of fresh oil on it to keep it slippery. You're actually very good with regular inspections of your vehicle - I think you'll have a ball keeping that habit up with the California. My garage has managed to keep everything so clean, it's like new. All I do is vacuum off the odd bit of stuff that gets blown in from the road during my joy rides... and of course, the hand car washes.

Not sure about the "cheater bar" though. Is that the wrench that JimmyChooToo located off the Web?

Sorry to see you are still wrestling with the stuck cap but that wrench looks interesting. Was it advertised as an oil cap remover? It certainly has the potential leverage needed. I would just make sure you wrap something around the "teeth" on the business end of the wrench to make a really snug fit over the cap and press down firmly with your weaker hand before trying to turn it... firmly but very carefully. It would also definitely help if you warm up the area to the point where it feels hot but not painfully hot to your hand. Heat will soften the O-ring as well as any oil, congealed or otherwise.

You always want to apply the minimum force to accomplish any delicate task.

LOL! That will also teach the shop gorilla a lesson and perhaps avoid a future repeat disaster.

Those strap wrenches look interesting - I've used the metal ones they make for oil filters but I never knew these nice "all-purpose" ones existed. I'll have to keep an eye out for them at Canadian Tire... never know when you need a gorilla's hand grip!

Normally I just wrap the lids with a small sheet of this rubber kitchen mat material to aid and shield my grip. I think they sell rolls of this stuff at "Bed, baths..." for when you need to protect a tabletop from damage.

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Yeah I have the largest landscaping company in the county and 3 of the surrounding counties. With the amount of hours we are prone to putting on the equipment it's imperative to do preventative maintainance daily to catch issues early and save on an expensive repair and even costlier down time. Most of the lawn mowers we run are about the same cost as a compact to mid size car. The diesel mowers we run are about 26k but with additional equipment much more. We also average an oil change about every 500 hours per machine due to extremely dusty conditions which works out to about every 7-8 weeks. The skid steers oil is checked every morning and every 8 hours afterwards and filters are blown out every day. We do all maintainance ourselves with the exception of every February all machines go in for a full inspection and service. We have all the work done on our vehicles by the local shop since it's deductible and they check everything while it's serviced and address what's needed.

I mentioned the cheater bar just so you could have some leverage. If I recall correctly I used a 1/2 SAE wrench to break my oil cap loose and it worked barely but it would have been nice to have an extra 8 or 10 inches leverage to break it loose. The wrench Jimmy got should work wonders.

As for the garage space we are building a whole new garage with a lift on one side and a loft over the second bay. Just applied for the permit and was approved. Should start on the concrete in another month or so. Once that's done it's buckle down on saving and paying off my truck. Everything still looks to be on track to start searching for a car next January or so. So everything's looking up. I'm just excited to start enjoying some time in nice car with the feel of the road the sound of the engine and the thrill of the ride.

 

Looks like you run a very professional outfit. By coincidence, my home is in need of service from a competent and professional landscaper who can do classical English or French style of landcaping... in Canada. It's not easy to find a combination of experience, skill and professionalism in the classical trades over here. Unfortunately for me, you appear to be across the pond from where I am but maybe I can hit you for advice should I run into problems!

I suspect, given your landscaping business, that your location will offer many interesting country roads to enjoy a Ferrari. The California is a wonderful GT for UK roads and towns. The earlier model, say 2012, will work well if you're mainly into taking the wife on a weekend or the odd 1,2-week road trip. You can cruise into little towns or drive scenic routes with the roof down, then have it up without any compromise overnight, if it rains or cruising carriageways. If you are into spirited driving, perhaps the odd visit to a track then I suggest the HS version which you can get with a Cali30 or CaliT as the HS suspension is needed for the car to respond properly to your quicker steering inputs.

I envy you your bountiful choice of interesting driving roads.

 

LOL! That's a funny name. Good luck!

 

OK, I admit it, that was cheeky, but I LOL'd nonetheless. Then, I went & checked my "like rate" - 3% Need to step up my game. OP, let us know how your adventure turns out...T

 

Hmm. I never checked any "like rate" - didn't even know it existed. Cheekiness is also considered very low on the social scale in my cultural upbringing. As for FChat popularity, for me it's a bit like meeting the opposite sex... much better to let things happen naturally than to be out on the prowl. So, not to worry Tom.

 

Oh no I live in America, Kansas actually but I sure wish I had access to some of those roads. But I have a ton of nice paved roads to enjoy where I'm at. It's very rural where I'm at with the nearest city with any real meaningful shopping opportunities being about an hour away. But to me it's like a county club. I usually get to the big city (Wichita) on the weekends or every other and I usually check out what they have at the Porsche dealer.

That's about the best there is for foreign cars since they have quite a huge selection on makes. They almost always have a Ferrari in stock matter of fact I helped user Fossilfuel get with them on his purchase of a Nero Cali 30 and to trade his F430. I actually drove that F430, which coincidentally was my first F430 to drive, and while I enjoyed it my wife didn't reinforcing the fact that the California is the Ferrari for me.

I didn't aim to become the biggest landscaper when I started. It really just started out as a supplemental income in the evenings mowing a dozen lawns. But apparently there were no landscapers in the county and nearly everyone had people coming out of Wichita to service sprinkler systems, install landscape lighting and plant trees shrubs and build patios. Fast forward 14 years here I am. Don't do much in the winter but if it snows we make more money in a day then we do in a week mowing grass. But the real money is in making people's back yards into a private oasis. I don't claim to know everything and a lot of times it's learning as we do things. I work with the local nursery and have a contract with them to plant the trees they sell.

While I tend to favor the more classical and simple look of classical landscaping the customers tend to pilot that journey and most of what we do is modern or of a rustic flavor. We do a lot of commercial installations of paver projects (Fountins, patios, retaining walls, benches) too which are all the rage right now. Occasionally I get to do a few actual construction projects which is the background I came from before this. While most vegetation tends to be a regional thing I'd always be happy to help. As far as landscaping features, I get what you are saying about non professional installers, we run into that a lot with sprinkler systems and ponds.

No matter what I have a pretty good thing going and I have nearly no right to complain, this community embraced what I had to offer and continues to have us do work for them.

 

I don’t think you’re analyzing it enough. It’s not that the “likes” are the goal. Simple a measure of quality. If people see value from a post they “like” it.

And I am being cheeky again.

I’m glad there are people to share knowledge on Ferrari’s.

 

You would need to look at just the new posts one made since "Like" was added as a feature and do the quick math on rate. Assumes old content most likely wouldn't be surfaced up for a "Like" which is probably fair.

 

LOL! I grew up under the British system and when I saw you describe your impressive landscaping operation and mention of counties without any mention of a state I started seeing English countrysides and country roads.

Well, I haven't had the pleasure of visiting Kansas yet but I do love the Midwest for its more traditional values and farming roots. We mostly have smaller farms and fruit orchards in my area but every time I drive along a large expanse of corn fields or some other pretty crop it just feels real good. I wished we had more rivers and hills in southern Ontario but I guess you have to be grateful for what you have. At least I have good access to pleasant country roads and small towns to visit, as I like to organize my drives so I have an interesting halfway point to stop over at. It's also more fun if I can buy fresh pies or fruits at farms along the route, helps to justify burning up all that gas going around in a circle.

As for doing landscaping for a living, working outdoors has its benefits especially if you have a passion for it. I grew up in a very big city but I have a bit of a farmer's mentality and like hard physical outdoor work. I also get to do a lot of thinking while I work and I learn a lot of interesting things from observing Nature and the weather. I belonged to a very nice bicycle club when I was in college. It was tobacco country and every weekend we would ride many hours in the countryside. Every time we passed quaint old farms or one shop towns I would try to imagine what it would feel like spending one's whole life in such simple surroundings. Years later I would drive my Cali30 back to those places... had a real hard time finding them! Everything's changed. Sad.

Where I live the lots are okay but not generous like those in the small US towns so yeah, a private oasis would be an apt description. I like English country gardens because they generally blend in rather than have bold features, a bit more lived-in, relaxed and ageless feel than modern and fashionable. French (provincial) style gardens are similar. My challenge is that it's zone 6 hardiness here so a lot colder than the typical English, French garden. It's more like Scotland and French Alps!

 

You know what cheeky implies?... zero-sum game, getting your jollies at someone else's expense. That's the reason why it ranks so low on the (mature) social scale. Only kids do that sort of thing, and they grow out of it.

Don't you have better things to do with your time?

 

Hmmm. Haven't got time to waste on that stuff. You remember the scams on social media where some people got so fixated on "likes" companies hired fake admirers so they could jack up the "worth" of their websites or whatever, to fool those folks? I couldn't believe how silly that was.

So no, I don't have any social media accounts at all; just a few email addresses. Haven't got time to waste on all the superficial fake online stuff.

But hey, if it makes your day... knock yourself out!

 

Here you go again <roll eyes>. Maybe you should start every post off with IMO.

Thanks so much for informing me what "cheeky" means. But more importantly I appreciated the many, many posts speculating (as fact) way a oil cap is stuck. IMO - you speculate and act like its fact. And everyone should understand your superior knowledge. You do know what speculate means don't you?

 

Reread...i am providing insight into the calc not commenting if I enjoy the feature. Also, I wasn’t speaking to you.

 

Sorry about the mistake, but your post was a bit cryptic and the discussions of the "like" feature has been directed at me, along with your input, in this thread. So given the timing of your post, perhaps you'll see why I thought your comment was meant for me.

FWIW, I also use "like" but probably not in the way that was implied by good2go. I use it even on posts made by people who have said negative things about me. I simply use it because I "agree" with what that person said. There is no other ways to indicate I simply "agree". And this brings up another point.

One of the no-no's on a public discussion forum is personal attacks, name-calling,...etc. We cannot post messages simply because we get upset about something and want to "go after" people we disagree with. There are practical as well as social reasons for this and the behaviour is simply not tolerated if the public forum is to function at all. This is why people should stick to discussing ideas rather than how they feel about another forum member. Messages are written about the expression of ideas, not how we might feel about another forum member.

This is why I may "like" a message even when I find the person making it somewhat disagreeable to me, from past experience. If that person is making a good point on a topic that matters to me, I indicate my agreement. If you consider this use of "like" then its metric has a somewhat different meaning - i.e. whether those liked messages, and topics, resonated with people who felt compelled enough to use "like".

The other thing I want to say is that, we don't really know people until we meet them face-to-face, one-on-one, without having the context of some heated pet topic perhaps imposing a preconception of the other person. Writing comments on digital media is full of potential hazards. I worked in huge corporations before and it is a nightmare when you have to craft a specific message that will work equally well on a very broad, highly political "bee-hive", if you know what I mean.

These are some of the main reasons why it is best to just stick to discussing ideas, not the other people in your group.

 

Good2go, I get that you find my comments disagreeable but as I said in my earlier post today, putting out messages in a public forum is fraught with hazards. We don't really know who the people who read our messages are really like, unless we meet them face-to-face, alone, without preconceptions and preconditions.

I have stated this before in the past. When people make an assertion, you can ask that person to back it with with some credible bas(es) for the assertion. It's not a bad thing to make an assertion so if you think it's speculation then by all means say you think it's only speculation and ask questions. Don't get mad and perhaps quietly brood, thinking that person is behaving in an annoying superior manner. Challenge that comment instead.

I hope you see my point. If every comment had to be accompanied by apologetic excuses then most of the time the ideas would be discounted. If you feel confident and have credible supporting information, then make confident statements. MalibuGuy also made confident statements and I did not have a problem with that practice. Instead I asked him questions about the ideas he expressed, not about him or his "superior knowledge".

So if you have questions about the ideas I posted, please fire away. I will try to satisfy your curiosity as best as I can - granted I have to split my time on the laptop with a lot of other "housekeeping", if you know what I mean.

 

Good work!
The next time you are at the service center ask a mechanic to show you the difference with how the other FCars oil caps work. It’s more than just the cap being made out of aluminum. The threading is precision matched to the cap so that when the cap is tight it is also rotationally aligned. This way the Ferrari logo is facing the same way in all the cars when tightened and not going to creep of axis over time. Also the way the metal cap makes a seal is different too, which helps prevent the metal cap from being stuck.

A higher level of precision gives the customer a sense of quality. Sort of like why a warch affeccionado might pay more for a mechanical Swiss watch, knowing the extra level of engineering and design which goes into the internals. And when you open a Rolex or Patek, one doesn’t see generic bits, that would be a disappointment.

Anyway, I’m glad that Ferrari offers a titanium version and hopes this is an improvement (given that the threading mechanism is still the same.)

Peace!