My FF PTU Replacement Experience

All,

I thought I would start a thread sharing my experience in repairing the PTU on my 2014 FF with 40k miles. The trio of warning lights that don't go away indicated an looksie.

I took my car to local independent Ferrari mechanic. Verified a failed PTU. My next decision was how to repair the unit. Following this great resource here, the fix was narrowed down easily to either Hollywood Mechanic in LA for a complete rebuild, or SS Autotech in Great Britain. Both shops were very responsive to my email questions and thorough in their responses. Both shops have done over 100 repairs so far.

Here were my options:

1. Have my mechanic drop out the PTU and ship it to LA Hollywood to perform the PTU rebuild and ship it back. Total Hollywood cost (not including shipping) was around $10,500. They required a $3150 deposit. (Note: I could have ordered their $2,750 repair kit and had my guy do it, but he did not want to commit the time to the job and correctly thought they would be much more efficient in hours they have done so many). I would also have the cost on my end of my mechanic taking unit out and putting it back in when shipped back. This will be $5-6k in my guess. While there, he will replace all belts, etc.

2. Order a refurbished unit from SS Autotech, when received from them, send them back my broken PTU for credit. Cost in British pounds: 8,450 for the refurbished unit and shipping costs = $10,731. Plus, you pay them 6,000 pounds ($8190) surcharge. Once they receive your damaged PTU unit and confirm its a viable one for them to fix, the will refund the surcharge.

Both explained in detail their repair process. Both are similar in most ways, and I felt comfortable going either route.

I went with #1. Reasons: a lower cost, plus not having to deal with who knows what tariffs in what amount will be in play when this goes down. Both offered a 1 year warranty. My thoughts it being easier to get my car or PTU shipped out to LA if something comes up under warranty. Of course, #2 gets your car fixed quicker as you just bring it in when the PTU arrives from SS Autotech. Larger outlay of money, but you get a good portion back.

My mechanic shipped out to Hollywood last week. Hollywood stated a typical turn around of 5 days (impressive). They received my PTU last Friday, and starting working on it over the weekend. See, my next posting.

 

Okay, so today is Tuesday. I received the following email from Hollywood after they took apart my PTU. I am proceeding with all the repairs they suggest in this email. My unit was in bad shape adding around $2,640 in additional repair costs. Hindsight, given how bashed up this one was, may have been more efficient going with SS Autotech unit since they replace a lot of what was torn up, but hindsight is 20/20, plus you don't know until you crack this thing open and start looking. I will follow their strict instructions on handling the oiler cooler, etc. when we do the reinstall. Lessons for everyone: Don't put off the very first warning lights on this PTU and don't top off hydro fluid to prolong addressing the problem. My opinion, if you have an FF that has not had its PTU fixed, do your best and just have it done preemptively.

Okay, here is the email describing the carnage:

"I took the PTU apart. I had mentioned to Brendan that in cases where the PTU fluid is continuously topped off and driven with the leak, the snap rings can break worse than when the initial signs of a problem (low ATF warning) and both tabs of the snap ring can break off and then they must be drilled out carefully to preserve the forks. In Brendan's PTU, two of the bushings had snap rings broken. One of the bushings had completely blown out all pieces of the snap ring and was floating free from the shift fork. On the other side of the same fork, the snap ring was initially missing one ear, but as soon as the tool applied some force to remove it, it came free from the rest of the ring. This required drilling it in half in the fork to enable removing and replacing the bushing. In addition to this complication, the metal pieces were found broken up and free floating within the PTU (see photos). The pump had to be removed to get the rest of the metal out and to be disassembled and inspected to ensure no damage to the pump (none found). This caused some of the metal to be chewed up by the gears of the 'pinion' and 'ring' of the unit. Also, a lot of the 'control' fluid was present and the unit must have been severely over filled (the entire side was black with oil leakage from the top breather and the top fork had metal covering it which is only possible if it was submerged in fluid; see photos). This 'control' oil is much thinner than the gear oil and further reduces the lubrication to the gears. These gear faces have signs of momentary high heat, but look and feel smooth enough to operate safely. We can add a gear spacing grease and assemble and spin the unit, then disassemble again to confirm this. I don't think that is completely necessary, though, as there are no rough, chipped or otherwise damaged parts of the gears. I would estimate proper filling with the correct gear oil will result in safe operation of the PTU. Continued oil analysis should be performed after 1000 miles of driving.


As a result of these issues, there was a lot of metal free in the PTU. This covered magnets on the forks (used to sense position by the sensors, see photos) and also caused several bearings to fail. We always replace the axle bearing, this is included in the initial cost, but I see scoring on 2 roller bearings as well as pitting on 3 ball bearings and one angular contact bearing. The ring gear lock nuts are also not in the final torque position (as evidenced by the paint marks, see photos). It's recommended that these lock nuts be removed and the ring gear bearing be inspected for wear and replaced if necessary. All the bearings I can see right now are available, however, the ring bearing part number is hidden by the ring gear and must be removed to inspect and order a replacement.


The prices of the bearings range from $34 to $85 each (of the 6 bearings I can see need replacement) and there are 3 hidden bearings that I cannot estimate cost on until they are removed. The shafts on two of the roller bearings must be removed and polished to remove the scoring that could damage the new roller bearing. This will be a machine cost of approximately $150 per shaft. The additional labor would be: 0.75 to remove and disassemble/reassemble the pump, 1.25 hours to remove the broken snap ring, 2.5 hours to replace the visible six bearings and to remove and install the shafts (to be machine polished), approximately 2 hours to remove the ring gear, inspect and replace the bearings that we cannot see. If he would like a gear face test with gear grease, it would be an additional 2 hours to apply the grease, assemble and disassemble to view the results.


The clutch surface areas are clean and no damage has occurred to the driver side clutches. The passenger side clutches cannot be inspected without removing the ring gear (something that needs to be done) but most likely will have the same condition as the driver side as the oiling supply is from the same source.


Given all of these details, I do believe the PTU will be repairable, however, extreme care must be taken to flush out the gear oil cooler in the car. This is something that will contain contaminated fluid that can disrupt the operation of the PTU. It is not enough to just pour oil through it. Heat and pressure from driving the vehicle will cause debris to be cleared much more efficiently. The car will need fresh fluid added, then driven 20 miles, then fluid drained/refilled, and this process repeated several times until fluid and the drain plug magnet come out clear. If this is not done, oil analysis results from future tests will not accurately show the health of the rebuilt PTU and the metal can cause continued wear or even loss of gears due to metal on the magnet on the forks.


Please let him know of the increased costs and let me know what he wants to do. Everything has been cleaned and all the snap rings and bushings have been replaced (as it was on the schedule for the weekend). Bearings have been ordered (if he declines, we can keep in stock in case of future need) for visible bearings but ring gear needs disassembly approval before we can order those bearings."


So in summary it looks like increased costs due to continued use of improperly operating PTU would add up to $2640 not including the ring gear bearings or the gear grease tests. This would include all the bearing replacement labor (including ring gear). Micah does think this would render an operational PTU that would still be covered under our warranty, given the gear oil cooler be cleaned out properly and an oil analysis showing that was clean and clear before leaving the shop and after 1000 miles of use can be provided.

 

In all fairness, they’ve never had a unit come in where so many parts were torn up like this one. So it’s not fair in my opinion to hold him to their prior estimate of this repair. Also, that’s always what it is, an estimate. They correctly qualify the estimate, not knowing exactly what they’re getting into but, or based on all their typical repairs in the past.

GTE engineering had some bad reviews on this website.

 

I’ve owned the car for a little over three years. I’ll have to check the exact dates on my records, but a little more than a year ago, I had a small leak coming from the drain plug for the PTU oil. At that time, I had PTU oil serviced when they replaced the drain plug. The hydraulic fluid was low at that time and they topped it off. I didn’t really have any other warning lights until this one came up.

But, in hindsight, the hydraulic fluid that was MIA had to go somewhere. And where it was going was through the defective seals and into the oil.

 

Yes, I agree about SS. Unfortunately, you just don’t know these things until the unit gets opened up.

 

I will get some photos posted Tomorrow

 

Here are some photos provided by Hollywood:
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When I asked if this was one of the worse, here is what they said:

Hello Brendan,


I have seen ones with more damage due to improper assembly from the factory. In these cases something pressed or tightened inside the PTU had moved. Some of these issues caused damage to the internal passenger axle shaft and we had to have it turned and balanced and custom bushings made for it. That was the worst one I've had to repair. I have not seen one where two bushings have broken the snap rings completely like yours has. I have seen one where one bushing was loose, but the other side of it was still intact. As to the metal on the magnets, I have not seen one where the upper magnet had the metal powder on it like yours does. I have also seen ones with damaged clutches, and in your case, the driver side looks great with no abnormal wear. So I guess I've seen PTUs that required more work to repair. This one has the most use after the leak began, I would assume.