Of the 20 reported PTU failures on FChat, only 7 are Lussos and the rest are FFs. Although this is to be expected as the FF fleet is probably larger than the V12 Lusso fleet and the FF fleet is definitely older!
Wow, 13 on this forum alone with about 3k FFs build. That's serious. Fingers X PS Evenly spread over MYs? I had the impression that pre MY13 car's were more vulnerable.
Unless its RWD V8 of course On a more serious note , a friend of mine has just bought a gorgeous FF. Is there any 'preventative medicine' that can be applied to the PTU or is it just one of those electrical things that work until they don't ?
No. The failure is mechanical (seals go). Luckily for your friend, in the UK there are two outfits who will repair and upgrade the PTU (Simon Furlonger and SS Autotech) for about £8k fitted.
Actually that is very encouraging. My experience with the several car forums I regularly participate in is that some people only join a forum when they have a problem. They are not car people and never participate in a forum except when they have a issue and need advice. They appear once and then disappear. Keep in mind people with no problems don't join a forum just to post "Gee, my FF/Lusso has run perfectly"!
All good info....Almost 2 years later and no issues at all. Probably close to 5K miles since and more than twice what was on the car before the issue. I did renew my Power15 though. Piece of mind for $6K. There are certainly failures not on the forum. I do believe if we knew the true number of failures and looked at it as a percentage of total cars it is very very very low. Both for the Lusso and FF. I think because if the cost and the fact it gets a lot of “press” on this site makes it seem more of an issue than it actually is. I did have a wet error a few weeks ago but definitely a battery issue as my knee knocked the knob and the lights were on unbeknownst to me. Drained the battery and had to trickle charge it back. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Contrary to what I have read somewhere on FerrariChat gear ratios of FF and GTC4Lusso are identical, so that suggests that the PTUs are also identical.
Very clearly? How do you know? You said earlier "The Lusso PTU has much higher torque limits than the FF's. From memory, up to 90% of the Lusso PTU's torque can pushed to the outside front wheel which the FF is not capable of. " Where did you get this info?
I found this interview that Automotive Engineering conducted with Ferrari’s CTO in which he explains how Ferrari improved the handling and power/torque management of the Lusso over the FF. “In general we wanted to improve the torque vectoring, with more flexibility to put the right amount of torque to the correct wheel," explained Ferrari Chief Technology Officer Michael Leiters during the new Lusso's debut at the 2016 Geneva Salon. "Therefore, we had to do two things: firstly, to estimate and control more precisely the slip of any wheel and, secondly, to improve the flexibility of the system to distribute the torque,” He added: “We are now able to put up to 20% more torque to the front axle with a maximum of 1400 N·m (1032 lb·ft) to either wheel and up to 90% of torque to the outer wheel during cornering." To view an animation of the new Ferrari driveline: Rapid response time Leiters told Automotive Engineering at Geneva that his team's idea for the new driveline was "to increase driveability in low-grip situations, which is why we decided to have AWD available through to fourth gear of the main transmission: We wanted to improve that system, especially in low-grip, wet and snow conditions.” To achieve that, Ferrari developed a new software algorithm to estimate wheel slip. Known as ‘Slip Control Version 4’ it employs a different suite of sensors, including speed sensors for the wheels and acceleration sensors, to more accurately calculate the precise manner in which the wheels slip, while improving reaction time over the outgoing technology by between “10 to 20%,” according to Leiters. Although ZF provides the GTC4 Lusso's mechanical hardware, the software and algorithm development has all been done in-house at Ferrari and is subjected to its own patents. The second major update was increasing the amount of torque available to the front wheels by optimizing the AWD system’s thermal management. “Previously that was one of our limits, but the cooling system and heat exchanger is more efficient than the previous one,” claimed Leiters. From its original concept, Ferrari's AWD was intended to be much more than a stand-alone system. "It was our initial idea to combine it with electrically-actuated rear-wheel steering; when you drive on snow with torque vectoring on the front axle you get increased control," Leiters explained. "But also having rear-wheel steering, that helps us a lot compared to other cars which have a very neutral behavior but can be very difficult to control when they start to oversteer." With the GTC4 Lusso, the car is "very precise and predictable, so you feel how the car is at the back. It’s much easier [to control] than the previous FF when we tested it on ice," Leiters noted. Although the system alters the rear-wheel angle by no more than 3º, Leiters maintained that the speed of reaction is most important. Beyond saying that it’s “very, very” fast" he wouldn’t divulge reaction time. He added that the keys to the system's enhanced effect on stability are the new algorithms that predict both the car’s behavior and the driver’s inputs."
If you have a problem with the PTU I recommend you to contact GTE Engineering in NJ, they have been rebuilding PTUs for 8 years. I had an FF that the PTU failed and I took the car to ExoticarsUSA for a repair, they bought a used one and put it in my car, I got charged $15k and this one failed after 2k miles. I brought the car to GTE and they fixed the problem for $8k. After I sold the car and I never heard any problem about that PTU.
I’ve had my Lusso for 11 months, and bought it with 5k miles. I’ve done 13k more since I bought it, in all weathers (inc winter tires) and for different types of trips; long distance and some commute Last month I got the 4WD failure when accelerating away from a toll booth (quite quickly…) and it went away but kept coming back intermittently, until eventually it was on all the time, and i went into a death spiral with other warning lights appearing, eventually inc manettino failure. I probably drove 1000 miles like that, as was a long way from home in a different country. Wasn’t a big deal as everything was highway cruising. Dealer told me they were expecting to find that the oil had leaked out and mixed - reading this thread, I now know why! However, they topped up and there was no leak - they are putting mine down purely to the number of miles done causing oil usage. Just did another 2.5k miles and have had no recurrence. I have a year left on warranty so will be paying attention…. When these start to go, is it normal to be able to fix temporarily (like my recent 2500 mile experience), or does problem tend to recur frequently until replacement?
I had the same problem and the same solution but sadly it's not a solution, the problem is there and at some point you'll need to replace the part ($40k) or get it rebuild ($10K) I recommend you to get it rebuilt before it causes more problems.
Thanks….I have a feeling the problem will be recurring while it’s under warranty! How many miles did you do after initial ‘fix’ before it came back again?
I did 2k before I had to rebuild the PTU because they put a used one with 15K but my car had over 15K when I had the problem with it.
All interesting info. The dealer did not attempt a fix on mine. As long as your under warranty drove it like you stole it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
my warranty ends next month tsktsk. thinking of trading it in if the ptu horror exists with the majority
Definitely not exists with the majority though. But not many people with non failing PTUs will come online and create a thread to state that their PTU is still working.
This is far from a majority problem. Problems always gets posted. In the big picture the numbers are small Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Yeah I talked to Haris at H&S in Houston and he's been a Ferrari tech for 20 years, I brought up the PTU issue and he said it's a non-issue It's easy to ruminate, that's what therapy is for
I compare this with the rod bearings issue on an e92 M3. Same story - design flaw from factory causes catastrophic damage, in that case requiring whole new engine. It’s a huge deal if you read the M3 forums. Overall numbers are probably 1-3% of cars made have that issue but you’ll hear all about the ones that did (of which there have been many documented cases, there’s a whole thread dedicated to tracking them). My M3 had the engine blow twice from rod bearings. Once under warranty, once out of warranty. Does that suck? Yes it sure does. Will it happen to everyone? No, just luck of the draw really. The FF I just bought has 38k miles and no PTU failure yet. Crossing my fingers it stays that way.
