I think your next move is about confidence: what will give you most confidence in the car from now on It might help to visit them to chat through your options by the car
Cam cover seals: The four brown large Orings at the sprockets of the cam shafts. Cam/Rocker gasket set: The paper gaskets between the cam covers and the heads. Missing is any mention of the 8 little orings around the spark plug holes (it may be in the set, it's not mentioned).
I have done cam cover gaskets on 355's before , with the engine in the car & it can easily be done 2 hrs per side . I dont know how they can justify 9 hrs
If that is what they did in July , then they should'nt be charging you again. Cam cover gaskets & Rocker cover gaskets are the same thing , Just named differently because 355 has cams under the cover & some other cars have valve rockers under the cover .
Ferrari coil pack P/N 138255 aka Bosch P/N 0221503407 (UKP48.73) Plus VAT and postage of course. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bosch-0221503407-Ignition-Coil/dp/B0039BSH0M
This is the exact **** show, of why nobody will ever convince the vast majority of potential 355 owners, that they are really not expensive to maintain ! Now if you spin wrenches ( like I did and many on this forum do) then yes cost are really not that bad at all. The bad news is these cars are over 2 decades old and things are just going to deteriorate. Well, you will get it sorted and enjoying her in a very short time. The driving sensation is epic to say the least. Smiles per mile is priceless.
I just saw a 42,000 miles 355 with a worn out oil pump tensioner pad causing chain dragging noise. The part requires the engine to come out, the entire front of the engine disassembled, the bottom of the oil pan dropped out, and the chain / pad removed, replaced, and everything had to be all put back together. And, you have to do the cam timing all over like a new engine again since the front of the engine is all in pieces. That is a 40,000 mile maintenance item on this car. Do it, or pay twice.
Amen. And you are an excellent wrench. Imagine the guy that knows nothing about cars. Well this behavior happens with MB, BMW and Range Rover. MB stealership tried to rip me off more than once when my car was in under warranty. I played stupid then told them what’s up. Fixed the issue really quickly. My buddy who works at a Range Rover stealership recommends and gets an OK from owners who come in for an oil change, to go ahead and do the brake job at 25k miles. Cost I think he said was $4K. Yeah to R and R the pads and rotors. He nets 1k I think he told me and is home for the day….at lunch time. Geez.
I not too worried about the coil pack price as that's being fully picked up by the warranty. Going to call the garage that did the recent major service this morning to see how they can help.
Question they are charging you 9 hours to replace cam covers then charging you 2.5 to replace the spark plugs —- why —- some of the work to access the plugs is the same as doing the covers so to me I would understand paying about 1 hour more not 2.5 there’s not much in your way at the point of cover removal And are they replacing the plug wires and boots It is sad that you need to do all this work so soon after you had the service Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat.com mobile app
Just realised via greyboxer this is related to your other query in the uk section. 1) if you want the previous garage to cover aspects of this you have to first give them the opportunity to fix it. Sounds like your too late on this. If it’s a main dealer you will probably be partially ok; but I suspect I know what an independent will say to you. Lots of details of the relevant consumer rights law on the web. Simple google search will find it and tell you what you should have done; everyday is s school day!!! 2) with regards to the price of the cam seals; are you sure you are not confusing cam cover as supposed to cam shaft seals?. Very different things and hence price. (Cam shaft seals are a known weak spot and I had them fail on my 348,14 months after being done; but Ferrari and the main dealer honoured the warranty and replaced them for free; basically another engine out). 3) the rest of their prices seem reasonable. I’ve had a lot of that work done a few years ago. Whilst it was cheaper then, prices across everything have gone up a lot in the past 2 years. If nobody told you; you should be budgeting £2-3k per annum to run one of these. Doing your own work helps but you know how sensitive the market is here to that! As you will have seen from bluebottles post; worth popping into the garage and building that relationship with them. Sounds of, but for these cars it’s important. Im sure it will be sorted soon. They are blast to drive and a love playing with the by pas valve on my 355.
A348 is right. In the US, you have to give the first shop a chance to fix it before you can have a claim against them. Taking the car to someone else releases the first shop of any liability. But this is age of internet and social networks. They might see the good will in "some compensation" for failed parts even though they don't have to just to avoid a bad on line review.
The saga continues... I spoke to the original garage who were surprised that this had happened but asked to talk with Carrs to understand more. That's happened, and I've just spoken to the original garage. Basically, they don't think it was their fault. Think my next step is to go to Carrs and ask Harvey to show me. I spoke to a mechanic I trust who said we should be able to clean out the oil then run it again and video the new oil coming through. I'll continue on Monday. @A348W Yep, completely fine with that budget - just hadn't expected to pay it all in the first 3 months! Also, Carrs hasn't actual done any work yet, just some investigations. I don't see there being a problem with shipping the car to the original garage for them to make things right.
The good news is that the garage that did the July service has agreed to correct any problems... "if it's our fault". They won't cover the cost of getting the car to them and then back to me again, though. Firstly, I'm nervous about the "if it's our fault" statement. I don't want to get into a situation where they have the car and then claim that it wasn't them. Secondly, should I insist that they cover the transport costs? Does anyone have any experience of this please?
"if it's our fault" - it won't be their fault is my prediction. In the end its easier to learn to work on them yourself. Hang in there and hope for the best. Won't be the last issue however. Let us know what they find out as cause.
My worry is that they then say "it's this thing that's gone wrong and you need to pay us to fix it". By which point, my car is on the other side of the country
Understood, It may also turn out to be something new, unrelated, which is what will happen in my prediction. Personally I'd just have it fixed locally out of pocket as this has the potential to badly spiral. You never know it may work out well. The question is do you gamble with the cost of doing that. Even than may have a new issue in 4 months. What then ship it back again? Its not a Toyota, I would not expect that type of reliability and issue resolution by the shops. Its part of the "fun" of owning these cars. Best of luck in any event! Fingers crossed!
First, I applaud them for the agreement to fix it "if it is their fault." The "getting there to the shop" is your responsibility. Normally there is a disclaimer in these things. Liability is limited to work done and parts. No transport, no overnight hotel, no loss of use, no indirect costs. But, if it is across the country then it is probably better if you have it fixed locally where you can monitor it.
Ferrarium is right the old shop can do the repairs and find more stuff to pad the bill and recover a little bet of their loss on the warranty work which is probably going to be the case Having a new shop locally do the repairs will probably be better because if they do the right thing you will be back and because they are in the area they have a Image to uphold plus it doesn’t hurt you to have a reliable place to goto These shops are in business to make money and the mechanics are there for the same reason most of the time they are working with time limits on them not to the customers meaning if you are paying 3 hours to the shop the mechanic might be under pressure to complete the job in half the time this is common practice in a lot of dealers and private shops — time is money—- But again some shops will work on their reputation and making sure they try to do the right job and stand behind their work —- these shops are far and few it’s up to you to judge if the shop you are working with is one or the other Please keeping posting I would to hear how this goes Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat.com mobile app
First off throw what “should be” (from a legal stand point) out of the window and read the shops invoice and written policy. That is what any Judge will follow. I was in a similar situation 3 times with my family’s cars and their botched repairs. I prevailed 100% of the time. It took pressure, facts, and legal threats to prevail. Also, familiarize yourself with your Local Consumer Laws and Regulations. In all 3 of our cases, it was stated that parts AND labor were covered. That is one of the reasons that most mechanics will void their warranty if they use your parts. One option is to have the local shop do the repair and then do an Affidavit or offer to be an Expert Witness. But, many shops don’t want to get involved for many reasons. For reference, the cases I was involved in, I was the Expert Witness, as I, at the time was a Licensed, ASE Master Automobile Technician. Anyway, I would never trust the semantics and play on words, as any shop doesn’t want to be out all the time and labor to fix it. Long story short, it is a lot of work, strategy, heavy lifting, and a royal pain in the arse. That is precisely why many of these cases go no where and the shop is let off the hook.
All this assumes its something they did. I bet it is not. Things happen with these cars due to age. Hell the MAF could be on the blink now. Could be wiring in the harness. That said, with the same shop having the car they can say what ever they want.
Cam seals is easy, they pinched the o-ring between the block and the valve cover, its likely the o-ring not the actual cam seals. If they did it once they will likely do it again. There is a TSB for that actually.
