Belt out service on 308? Costs ? Estimated cost ?

I appreciate a list of end of service lives for various parts. I would help everyone.

 

Personally, I always replace tires and brakes before they completely fail.

 

Spoil sport... Where's your sense of adventure

 

Let me guess. You change the oil before the engine seizes too.

 

So we need to change EVERYTHING before they fail at every belt change.

I would want to rebuild an engine before it fails (and leaves me stranded)

Every belt change need an engine rebuild too - before it fails....

 

I agree. A Ferrari or any aluminum engined beast, is usually highly strung. Waiting for a failure of something known to have a service life can mean mucho dollars after the failure. DIY'ers in many instances translates to shortcuts and missed maintenance, but with a car like a 308, a DIY'er is about the only owner who can afford to go the extra step when doing maintenance. Obviously lots of people have open checkbook maintenance services done on their car but they aren't the preponderance of owners these days.

 

Maybe we should change the philosophy to " a full rebuild every five years or 15k miles" so the belts just end of getting changed as a matter of course.

 

In 1989 I had the 15k mile service done on my 308 QV at the dealer I bought it from. They adjusted the valves, changed the oil, trans fluid, coolant, filters and spark plugs. Replace the front brake pads. I asked about T-belts and cam seals. Their response was the seal aren't leaking and we only do belts at 15k if the owner requests them. WP never entered the discussion. This despite that the owners manual had a insert that said do belts every 2 yrs.

 

Personally I inspect my car regularly. If there is any leak that needs to be addressed you know. A leak is NOT a serious problem that need to be fixed right away. Just keep an eye on it. Most of the time the problems that put you in trouble could not be suspected or replaced by prevention. Like electrical.
The belts are another story. They are RUBBER parts that age and deteriorates with time. And if they break it's a DISASTER.
2 OR 3 years like some suggest is WAY overkill.
I personally streched my luck to 9 years on my 308 but milage was low. They looked new when I removed them But the bearings were due. I honnestly think that 5 to 7 years is very reasonable for belt life. Anything else is ON CONDITION.

 

In fchat tradition of completely changing the subject in mid thread. Sodium filled exhaust valves have been a lightning rod in the 308 section on 2 valve motors as being prone to breakage and also should be changed at your first belt service I found it interesting that chevy has put sodium filled exhaust valves in their new flat plane crank Z06 motor.

 

That might be because Mercedes and Ferrari have proven they can last beyond 40 years. Congrats to GM for getting with the program.

 

At the risk of beating the horse that won't die ... This is my personal car.

I have a 2006 BMW station wagon 530XI that I use as a work truck and a throw away car. I drive it everywhere, I park it anywhere, I take a hundred short trips, I move 2000lbs of concrete bags, I buy 2x4 lumber in it, the paint is flaking off, if the car is totaled I don't care. But I do maintain it pretty religiously. Oil changes every 5K miles, etc. The serpentine belt got changed 20,000 miles ago along with all the radiator and heater and coolant hoses before I moved my kid to San Diego. The idle belt pulley did not get changed because ... I did not have one, and it spins freely, and laziness and it's my car I can work on it anytime and my labor is free and and and a million other excuses.

This morning at 6:30AM, I am driving to meet my friends for regular Friday coffee, and getting off the freeway, I lost power steering. Popped the hood, serpentine belt is gone. The idle pulley froze up and took out the belt. I was able to get off the freeway because the car has electric water pump which won't need a belt to run. A tow truck was gonna take hours.

So, lesson to me is "Don't effing be lazy or cheap" Just do the maintenance so you don't get stuck by the side of the road waiting for a tow.

I know this horse is not gonna die, but it's dead for me.

 

Italian prices for the service, explained: prices are in € and then you have to add 22% VAT (IVA). The shop is a top one, a well known Ferrari specialist at Maranello, but not Ferrari official.

It includes all fluids (engine, gearbox & diff, brake fluid, engine coolant), engine oil filter, full belts (all belts, with new high quality bearings), a new waterpump and a new battery.

Engine oil and battery were of my property, so they are not charged (only labor cost there).

This is a just one month old invoice.

ciao


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It's been noted many times that labor rates in Europe and the UK are no where near as high as US rates.

 

Wait, people change timing belts without removing cam covers? I have seen exactly zero 308s with the timing marks being spot on after replacing the belts. Additionally, with carb 308s, I have seen exactly zero that were not in need of distributor work. I just would not want to be involved with a car that just had the belt replaced unless it was well documented that the other stuff was kept up as well.

 

Image Unavailable, Please Login Here’s what Ferrari dealer charged me on October for the service of my 328.

 

That's $3200 ?

 

1770 for belts, 1740 for liquids (oil, brake, coolant) and filters

 

The paranoia spread here has changed the way a lot of shops do business. Prior to the internet a lot of parts were not changed just because. For 20 years or so I inspected water pumps at services. Never knew I was supposed to just throw it away. Shops will rise to that challenge and many have done so.

If only Goebbles had the internet at his disposal.

 

And for the $1770 corresponding to belt service, as you can read, $1505 is for labor and $295 for parts.

 

Its an 84. No distributors to service.
How many times do I need to retime cams on the same car before I can assume they have not changed on their own?

 

They need more options than just like— laughing, crying etc.
I wonder how much of the change in practices is from many parts now being inferior copies of the originals. Bearings and water pumps are two examples. The original SKF outer cam drive bearings (C4 with high temp grease) are no longer available. How good are the bearings and seals in that new water pump from China?
In Ferraripilot’s defence, I wouldn’t be surprised if timing belts have enough variation to shift timing several degrees. From memory, my worst ones were about 7 degrees off and you wouldn’t see it without removing the cam covers. Most people wouldn’t notice the difference driving the car though

 

This all started long before the parts you speak of were on the market.

If you put on a belt a little longer or a little shorter it will retard or advance both cams nearly the same which will have very little impact especially when you consider 99.9% of the cars on the road only adjust to the nearest tooth. I can agree you might get 1-2 degrees variance from Dayco branded belts but having timed more Ferrari cams than most on this board combined its just simply bull **** that it can be 7 degrees. Saving a 4 figure amount to replace belts that are 5 years old on a car that has maybe 5000 miles since a good major service on the off chance you might lose 2 or 3 horsepower is a trade most are willing to make. Besides, the comment was to see the timing marks. Timing one of these motors by eyeballing the marks is a well understood and often proven waste of time and false sense of security. For all but a very few changing the cam timing is dumb because of the lack of knowledge to do it correctly.

 

I would bet that Chevy specified sodium filled exhaust valves with a stem diameter and wall thickness that were properly sized so that they wouldn't break in a decade or two, unlike the Ferrari undersized valve stems. Not all sodium filled exhaust valves are equal, and the reason the Ferrari ones have become a common concern is that they're less equal than those used by other manufacturers (by virtue of Ferrari's skinny stems).

quoting a Rifledriver post from 2013 - it's not just sodium as a factor on the exhaust valve failures, Brian notes that Ferrari's valve stem diameters were narrower than pretty much every other sodium valve used.​

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/would-i-have-sodium-valves.395864/#post-142044367 (The below text is post #18 by Rifledriver in this thread)
Sodium valves typically have very large stems. The German valves I have seen for Mercedes and Porsche ranged from 10.5mm to 12mm in diameter so that there was a useful hollow space and enough stem material to be strong. The American sodium valves I have seen were 3/8's....same idea.​

Alfa used 9mm stems on theirs but for the most part those motors had lower redlines and the power was in the lower part of the range so seeing redline was far less common.​

Ferrari used 8mm stems with minimal wall thickness and yes, I suppose you could say they weren't very good as evidenced by the fact that they have a reputation for breaking.​

With valve stem diameter never entering into the discussion comparing Ferrari valve breakage to German or American uses of sodium is just silly.​

For those that want to feel safe because of the idea that only worn guides are the cause of valve breakages. Sorry, not the case. I have seen motors break their valves with perfect guides. The very first Ferrari motor I ever took apart was a low mile Lusso motor with a broken, recently replaced OE valve. I have seen many more since.​

 

And for cars with air injection, it doesn’t help that the weld in the stems is right where the air is injected which is the hottest part.