328 on BAT

Really common and many exotic car salesmen have told me the buyers are their own worst enemy. One reason I tell prospective buyers to get someone in the business who is going to eventually inspect the car to advise them as well. Many really need a dispassionate advisor.

 

Vintage cars boats and airplanes all have that in common. The ones with a reputation for high operational/ownership costs get their values depressed as a result. People don't mind paying more upfront for something if the likelihood is that will be the worst of the ownership experience.

If the belt changes are costing $15 large you are being seriously screwed.

 

Where did you come up with 15K for a belt change?

 

This has been going on since F Chat started. People exaggerate prices so the shops are more than happy to make them come true.

Internet BS has been driving up prices for years.
Keyboard warriors say "This has to be done this way and with all these parts. All of the sudden customers demand it and guess what? Bills go up.

Whenever someone comes to this door saying "I heard this on F Chat" they get shown out.

 

3x8s finally getting the loving they deserve

 

Just had a full service done earlier this year on our 1988 328 GTS (belts, water pump, all fluids changed, injectors replaced) and it was just under $6,400 CAD

 

As an air-cooled 911 owner... dealer service on these isn't cheap. Granted I was doing catch-up maintenance and the car needed a $1063 blower motor, but I had a five-figure major service-plus incidentals bill on a car that was running great. Double my 328 major service bills. I don't expect Testarossa-level costs, but anyone thinking a 30-year old Porsche is economical to run is ill-informed.

I'd still take a 328 over almost any other regular production Ferrari if I was physically capable of driving it. The ownership costs are reasonable, and the driving experience can't be duplicated in newer cars.

 

really?

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They saw you coming, lol

 

12 to 14k for a full service on a 328 !?
I mean…..someone could quote $30,000 but that doesn’t mean thats the number.
I would say a solid guess depending on where and how involved $4000-$6000.
Multiply that by 5 years or so and it’s very reasonable number for Ferrari ownership.
Drive it fairly regular and you’ll have minimal issues.

 

Let me guess, they have to pull the engine, right?

 

No. Thats too low for a quality complete job. At least in any major metro area.

 

More like it. In my experience one of the things running up the bill is fixing prior bad work. Last 328 I did got to $14 G's for exactly that reason. A huge reason the BAT 328 was to me such a good find. One owner car with a history of being serviced in a timely fashion at known good shops is worth a large bump in value. Very few 35 year old cars can make that claim. A great many 328s on the market are only a frame off restoration away from being a good car.

 

Can you tell us one of the examples of the bad work you found in that car that you had to correct?

 

Several coolant hoses were replaced with fuel hose and are incompatible so needed to be replaced again. I needed to replace the heater hose and instead of just pulling one through like normal in just a few minutes someone prior had the fuel tank out and on re installation smashed hose between the tank and its mounts. They could not figure out how to remount oil cooler so made adapter mounts and all had to be undone. Warm up regulator was mounted backwards and hoses modified so it would fit. Plenum chamber was left loose and sucked in rubber gaskets so it had large vacuum leaks. They jury rigged various tuning adjustments so it would still kind of run. There are several anti oil leakage mods that were suggested in 1988 that after 33 years still had not been done. There were stripped and broken or wrong or just missing fasteners everywhere. Torque strut mount was left loose and spacers were missing.. The right coolant pipe support bracket was left off so pipe was being sawed through by tank strap. Someone could not figure out how to reroute injector lines so they were rebent to fit their way. When the front of the motor was taken apart to install belts they forgot how it was so studs got stripped, spacers missing, put together with whatever they found laying around. The list just goes on and on.

It is becoming increasingly common and was not all done at the same time. It was the results of several services so much of it was blown off at least once. . One of the big problems here is most of the people doing this were born after these cars were built. They are working flat rate and are pissed because they have been given an unfamiliar car so making money doing it is very difficult. It will never get their best work....whatever that is. It will get done in anyway they can quickly so hopefully they will get a car they know and can make some money on. It is also why we see $14,000 estimates from dealers. They have to raise the billable hours to the point their 28 year old mechanics will even work on them.

 

I found this to be true with my 328, and now air-cooled 911. I found a great tech, with real grey hair, but there's a ~3 week wait to get the car to him.

 

My 328 and 911 tech definitely has grey hair. It's me...... I don't trust others to work on my cars. I will outsource any machine shop work, but I will handle the rest. Especially with all of the information available on the internet these days, I'm not afraid to tackle just about anything. Over the years, I have rebuilt an E-type Series 1 engine, a couple of 911 engines and trannies, and a Lotus Turbo Esprit tranny. The Lotus was the worst, as parts were tough to get. I'm going through my 328 now. It just needs routine stuff done to it so far.....

 

I am losing more and more sleep over this sort of thing. Not so much half assing it (I, unfortunately, expect that these days in many places) but more the lack of knowledge.

For example, who can set up the twin SU's on my 74 MGB if I run into a problem with them now? What about diagnosing a fuel injection problem with the L jet on my 82 Alfa Spider?

We had two or three older guys here in town that had been working on these cars since the 70's when they were new and everywhere but they all have retired since the covid thing last year.

So, yeah, I am quite literally losing sleep over this for the first time in my life now when I let myself think about it at night.

 

Becoming a huge issue for us too. The biggest challenge is finding good reliable subcontractors. My machinist of 20 years during the covid shutdown decided to just retire and closed up. The guy who did radiators retired. The guy I used for starters and alternators retired too. Seems like some of those are easy to replace you are wrong. A lot of those businesses are not being taken over buy an employee or family. Not even being sold because no one wants to do it.