488 Spider brake squeaks

I have had the same issue...not just with Ferrari brakes but other high performance brakes as well. In my experience your dealers solution works. (I noticed my brakes always stopped squeaking after track days). You might have to repeat from time to time.

Slow driving in stop and go traffic makes it worse (I live in NYC)...fun spirited driving fixes it. Compared to the racing brake setup I've run on my Porsche (pagid yellow pads and giro disk rotors) the F brakes really don't squeak much. They also stop much better in winter.

This is possible because in town driving causes the top layer of the bad to glaze over contributing to the squeak. Sharp stops wear it off.
Normal street pads are less durable so slow speed driving does wear the pad exposing fresh material. More durable performance brakes need work to expose a fresh layer of pad. If the f brakes wore properly at slow speed and low temps they would suck on the track.

A brake setup is tricky. Brakes basically take the energy from a moving car and turn it into heat. The more spirited your driving the more heat you generate. Brakes designed for normal road use have lower operating windows then brakes designed for racing or more spirited driving (I think my pagids come alive at about 800C). Ferrari brakes have a wide window but still to get them to work at high temps they sacrifice some use ability at low temps.

Hope this helps. Congrats on the car. Obviously if this doesn't work go back to your dealer but you are describing a common situation with high performance brakes on the street.

-Brian

 

I appreciate your concern and I too would be most displeased. My 458 didn’t squeal and my 1 month old 488 doesn’t either. That whole bedding issue just seems whacky to me. Good luck getting the issue resolved. I’ll pray to the brake squeal gods on your behalf.

 

Brake bedding according to Ferrari WSM:

Brake 16 times from 80 Km/h to 20 Km/h with constant pressure on the brake pedal and without activating the ABS system.

Leave the brake system to cool for approximately 120 seconds.

Brake 16 times from 120 Km/h to 20 Km/h with constant pressure on the brake pedal and without activating the ABS system.

Leave the system to cool for 180 seconds.

The ABS system must be triggered during the last set of braking runs.

Brake AT LEAST 5 times from 120 Km/h to 0 Km/h (vehicle completely stopped), causing the ABS system to activate.

Allow the brake system to cool completely before using the vehicle again after the bedding-in procedure to ensure maximum braking efficacy.

As soon as you notice an increase in brake pedal travel, stop the car and wait for the brake system to cool completely.

For vehicles intended for TRACK use

Brake 16 times from 80 Km/h to 20 Km/h with constant pressure on the brake pedal and without activating the ABS system.

Leave the brake system to cool for approximately 120 seconds.

Brake 16 times from 120 Km/h to 20 Km/h with constant pressure on the brake pedal and without activating the ABS system.

Leave the system to cool for 180 seconds.

The ABS system must be triggered during the last set of braking runs.

Brake AT LEAST 5 times from 160 Km/h to 0 Km/h (vehicle completely stopped), causing the ABS system to activate.

Allow the brake system to cool completely before using the vehicle again after the bedding-in procedure to ensure maximum braking efficency.

As soon as you notice an increase in brake pedal travel, stop the car and wait for the brake system to cool completely

 

You aren't alone, mine squeak too. I hope a trip to the track on June 7 will make things better. I have done some hard braking already and it hasn't helped.

 

My 2018 spider has 400 miles on it and the brakes squeak like crazy, especially at low speeds which is consistent with prior comments. Very annoying, so I’m going to try brake bedding recommendation this weekend to see if it helps!


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My Scud squeaked. Braking hard did not help. I got a bit of a break when I used a bit of water pressure to “clean” the disks when washing the car. I would also dry the system by going in reverse and break. After that, it would go away for a few weeks and then come back.
I had a different type of squeak in the Speciale. In that case the squeak would be louder but only when breaking moderate to hard when brakes were warm. The dealer fixed this completely by cleaning the disks and rotating the front pads (right to left and left to right). It has been almost a year, no squeak so far.
I understand that lots of heat is the fastest way to wear out the disks. I would ensure to allow proper cooling within and after the bedding process in case that you decide to go that route. Good luck.


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The aforementioned Ferrari defined brake bedding procedure is, IMO, insane. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I would abuse my car in that fashion.


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Wait till they go from random squeaking to rotational squeaking to actually failing like my 488's brakes did.

 

The bedding procedure is actually right. U don’t need to wait for track day. Just go to huge empty parking lot and do it. Or do what I did: wake up at 4am and do it on completely empty road (I did it at the beginning of the month as cops are lazier then).

 

Make sure to look for 488 on the odometer so you can add yourself to the 488 on my 488 thread.