Yikes... a tiny leak from the valve cover. Time to junk the car or pull the motor and rebuild it. My kids' late mother took the SUV I gave her to the dealer some years back.. she called me and said they had a long laundry list of items that needed to be done "immediately" before she left or drove another mile. I logged into their system and looked at the work proposed - my god... photo after photo of stuff with all sorts of scary "urgent" "moderate" warnings as far as what needed to be done. Mostly oil seepage around old gaskets; I think they wanted $5000+ of work on a car that was worth maybe $3800 on a good day via FB market place. I told her, "Just get the oil changed and get the F out of there - decline all that BS". Like Brian correctly points out: you take your car in while repairs are on their dime, they don't find anything wrong at all. The second the warranty expires, then every spec of oil is impending doom. My sister took her car in to the dealer a while back.. $1700 for repair of the leaking sunroof and front brakes. !?!@$ omg. I repaired her sunroof for $5 worth of Ultra Black RTV and made her do the brakes pads in front for $38. Done and done. She was highly concerned the RTV wouldn't work. 10 years and many snow covered months in NV and her car never leaked even a drop of water. She did ignore my warnings to change her timing belt (for 5 years) and eventually that destroyed the motor.. but no leaks on that sunroof 1 hour for valve cover gaskets on a Ferrari.. that's speedy. Takes me ~45 minutes to swap the valve cover gasket on my Toyota 22RE 4-banger and that's only because I've already removed all the vacuum lines, VSV's and threw away the P/S system My rule of thumb for Ferrari parts and labor has always been "what it would normally cost on your Honda", then multiplied by 10 or 15 Ray
So its an hour job on a disassembled car. In whose world is that a complete job or an accurate indication of anything? What an ass. You are just intentionally spreading disinformation
Hey folks, I'm the OP and first wanted to thank everyone for their response, it was extremely helpful to read everyone's thoughts and opinions and help me set my baseline understanding. Reading all these posts there is a spectrum of different philosophies on owning and repairing a car like this, ranging from using an independent mechanic and after-market parts at one end, to having a Ferrari dealer do all the work with Ferrari parts at the other. I don't think one is better than the other (although one is most certainly cheaper than the other), it just depends on the owner and their philosophy in owning the car. I think people own these types of cars for a variety of reasons - as a collector, as a status symbol, as a fun toy, to own a piece of history, tracking, etc. For me personally this car is the perfect intersection of form and function, and it's the pure joy of simply driving this highly performant car on a beautiful day through the backroads and listening to the sound of the exhaust that I enjoy, as well as owning a little bit of Ferrari history. One of the posts asked where I am in regards to finding an indy....I'm in Danbury CT, my Ferrari dealer - Miller Motorcars - is in Greenwich CT. BTW I do want to say they have been great to deal with. On the first day I went there just to scope out the place they spent about an hour with me touring the garage, and they routinely invite me to exclusive events like F1 watch parties, etc. Regarding an indy I did find the Meccanic Shop North Inc in North Salem NY which is close by although I haven't visited them yet - if anyone has any feedback on them it would be appreciated. However I'm not necessarily ready to dump my dealer, my OP was to understand if what I was going through was an anomaly or not, and it appears not. There's a lot I didn't understand about owning a car like this. The things I thought would be expensive (like car insurance) were not, and the things I never would have considered (like the cost of parts) were. A good example is the engine oil scavenge / water pump replacement, which is $13,451. Roughly $10k of that is the cost of the part! My dealer brought the part up on the computer and it shows Ferrari having 4 left. That's 4 left in existence at Ferrari which seemed impossible to me, however this led to another informative discussion about spare parts and the fact there is a certain quantity available and for older cars when part runs out Ferrari makes a decision about whether to manufacturer more of those parts. He told me there is basically are huge storage areas in Maranello, one for each model of car (going back decades) where all engineering diagrams, molds, paints, etc are kept so they can produce spare parts if they decide to. (BTW my dealer, knowing that there are many F430's in the area, bought all 4 spares. I assume this would trigger Ferrari to decide to make a decision about making some more). I appreciate the comments on driving it regularly to keep it healthy. When I bought this I thought I was lucky that I found an owner that treated it like a museum piece, but in retrospect that was wrong. The universal feedback from most everyone I have ever spoke to including the dealer is to drive the car like it's meant to be driven. As far as the current repair list - I decided to swallow that huge, bitter pill and going ahead with the dealer doing everything on the list and hope that I've gotten the big things out of the way for a while. At least now I feel like I know the subtle ins-and-outs about what it really means to own a car like this. Thanks for all the feedback.
You hit the nail on the head - everyone wants that low mile museum car... until they drive it and start to see the issues. But I think it human nature... its not cheap, for sure, but enjoy the experience... we only go around once. in the end that is what its all about.
Ferrari Classiche has all the drawings etc... when and if they remake Ferrari parts... that is hard to determine. its a cross of $$$ profit v.s. cost and demand.
Ferrari does not care about you or he car after you buy it. They will not make more parts. The 430 is 20 years old. Not even GM supports the parts chain after 10years. In the future keep all your old parts like this. Ferrari often replaces parts. In the aftermarket as these parts get rare there are people who fix them. Ferrari stopped making 348 flywheels long ago. There are people who can resurface the old and service the internals of the voight dampen flywheel. A 550 maranello spark plug wire is low tech but $100's per wire. There is a work around COP conversion many of us do that totally avoid Ferrari completely and works better than Ferrari could do at the time. So stay tuned into the 430 board and read the tech threads even if you never plan to turn a wrench. They will keep you up to date on 430 happenings like the current thread on gearbox breather vents. You keep these tidbits of info in the back of your head and someday you might remember an issue and then have an intelligent pathway to a solution that can be less painful then opening your wallet to an FNA dealer.
Those cost are typical of a dealer but you can find very qualified independents to perform those repairs for much less. Oil/Waterpump is an easy rebuild for leaks. Aftermarket ball joint options are ,much more cost efficient. .
We also see this a lot. Another shop will make it sound like the car is going to get stranded on the road. Small crusty residue on a weep hole, which is typical, we clean and monitor it for the next few years with no issues. Unless its actively leaking and getting to under tray its not worth addressing.
Good to know you missed a lot of the message. By the way, that oil pump is $3500 not 10 grand. But they are worth every penny I am sure.
There was a Reader's Digest article several decades ago where a RD journalist called out dentistry as a criminal enterprise. He went to about six dentists and got six different diagnosis and treatment plans on his one set of teeth. How can this be? Which dentist isn't a criminal? To the lay person you either have a cavity or you don't. The answer is none were criminals. All six were right and could easily justify their treatment plan. Remember that 550 water pump I post about above? I can buy a complete WP rebuild kit $300, complete Ebay "rebuilt" water pump $550, complete OEM New Ferrari for $1400. As a DIY guy I'm going to buy the rebuilt kit. My cost is $300 and my free labor. You can take a chance with Ebay things we have all got screwed there at least once. The slam dunk is $1400 from Ferrari. How can you go wrong with new OEM? There is nothing wrong with a new factory certified part. What if you had an indy rebuild your pump? You pay for Indy Labor + install and you could beat the new $1400 + FNA labor cost. But you both take risk! You risk that the pump can leak because a guy who does not rebuild pumps all day long tried to do it. The indy risks he has to warrantee the job and if there is a leak he is doing the job again for free! What indy wants to take that risk? Some indy's take that risk to lure a customer with lower prices. There is nothing wrong with that especially if you can rebuild the water pump right. So the reality is no one is getting screwed. The issue is informing customers why something is done and what their options are for the repair. Customers bear some responsibility in this too. A shop might send you away with 50% life on your brake pads. That could be 20K street miles left but you did not tell the shop you are taking a trip across the country to do some trackdays. You needed to start the trip with 100%.
When factory list is $3500 and the charge is $10,000 I disagree. Even Donny Callaway didn't screw people that bad.
Hmmm...I'm either an ass or a peon on an internet forum that's creating a mass disinformation campaign to in a conspiracy to overthrow the entire exotic car industry. Ok. Replacing the valve cover gaskets on a 360 is done as part of the major service every 3-5 years, which means, yes, the car would be disassembled to that point anyway when you replace the valve cover gaskets, which at that point is an "hour or so" as I said, job at that point. I'm not expecting to convince the quoted well-respected esteemed and knowledgeable member of anything, nor do I care to, but in the spirit of the thread, my point to the OP is that he's getting screwed with those prices.
Maybe it's $10k because he said they bought the last 4 from Ferrari. He is paying for the 4 so they can rip off every other customer from now on
Timing belts on a 360 are not required to replaced during a run on the mill belt swap. The valve covers would only get removed if leaks needed to be fix, or cam timing is being checked. Next time you do that job, set a timer. You will be very surprised how much time it takes
Factory flat rate was .6 per cover with installed engine. Now you know why it was so difficult to get warranty work done. Pull car in. Put on hoist. Get parts. Remove belly pan. Remove air box and sub frame. R+R coils and valve cover including clean up of surfaces. Reassemble car. Clean and stow tools. Tag old parts and return to parts department. Test drive car. In 36 minutes. Now you also know why customer pay jobs cost so much. You are subsidizing the Ferrari warranty program.
No you intentionally provided very incomplete information intended to deceive. Not only incomplete but a lie as well. You are no different than the guy who claimed he could replace his 360 clutch in 3 hours. Forgot to mention he had help and started on a half way disassembled car and didn't complete the reassembly . Just another key board warrior beating his chest. Must be a pretty boring life.
That is 100% untrue. Ferrari decades ago wanted out of the parts business. They set up a deal with Maranello Concessionaires, now known as Maranello Classic parts. They are the factory authorized parts distributor. They are also authorized to manufacture genuine Ferrari parts. If you buy a 348 valve cover gasket it comes from them. They are still making 250 parts. Since it was bought by Roger Penske they require a higher level of turn over to justify making parts but if they get enough orders they will make 348 flywheels. The have new items made all the time. 360 parts dont come from Maranello, they come from England and have for some time. 308 tail lights were NLA for years. They are available again because of MCP.
Ha. No, it was a random comment by a nobody on an Internet forum that another member decided to reply to out of the blue and blow out of proportion and make a huge issue out of when there wasn’t one...then did it again when replying to a completely different member that was actually interested in having a discussion instead of hurling insults over the internet. Yeah, I'm the keyboard warrior. I was just the lucky RD recipient today, it will be someone else tomorrow. So even though it seems that even Ferrari agrees with my assessment, if I keep this nonsense going I'm sure I will be the one getting banned, so let's drop it. Will do, I always considered that to be part of the major service, but I can see it being less necessary than the rest. I can understand people opting to not get it done it if isn't causing issues.
