Oil Leaks in V12s

I have recently seen two separate 812s getting the oil leak repair done to them (GTS and a Superfast) as well as saw a superfast that had the work recently completed. Over the course of last two years, the number of 812s I have seen that had a form of oil leak vs none was higher.

Seeing how many oil leaks I have personally run into, I spoke to a service manager as well as a senior technician at two different dealers. They pretty much told me the same thing. I see this forum is somewhat on the quiet side discussing issues and I think that might be in part due to owners of these cars not knowing enough detail about these issues as to why/why/how.

Hope to have an open discussion here with others adding their experience.

- All V12s up to and including 599 leak oil the same manner in the same places. This includes all 812s, FF, GTC4Lusso, etc.

- The kinds of leaks from easier to most difficult to fix are as follows: (1) Fuel injector plate gasket. (2) Intake manifold gasket. (3) Cam cover gasket. (4) Front timing chain. (5) Belt tensioner. (6) Cam solenoid. (7) Head gasket

- The same set of leaks with most common to least common (1) Intake manifold gasket. (2) Front timing chain. (3) Cam cover. (4) Fuel injector plate. (5) Intake manifold. (6) Cam solenoid. (7) Head gasket

- The main problem is the car uses old school rubber gaskets on all parts due to machine tolerances of the engine not being precise enough. The reason why cam cover leaks the most is because the part that is closest to the exhaust headers get cooked over time, crack, and leak. Same goes for intake manifold, and injector plate.

- The leak is almost always from the back of the engine, closest point to headers.

- Factory does NOT use RTV on sealing engine components.

- Ferrari’s “fix” is to reseal the engine with rubber gaskets which guarantees the problem will occur again.

- Some dealers go the RTV route and seal the engine for good.

- All issues except injector/intake manifold are 10+ hours of labor. Some dealers do this with removing the engine from the car, some do it while in the car. Its a 2 day job for most of the cam cover/timing chain cover related leaks.

- If its the head gasket, its 46 hours of labor that require a full engine rebuild.

- Sometimes the intake manifold or cam covers themselves need changing which can cost very expensive parts to be ordered that take months to get here.

- The engine needs to be timed correctly and this calls for all cam caps to be removed, inspected, torqued again as well as cam gears to be reassembled. This is where most time is spent.

- Expect $15k-$40k depending on what parts are needed. Intake manifold is close to $15k and cam covers are $12500 each I believe.

I would recommend finding a good engine shop who can open up the engine and seal it for good.