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.

 

I was simply sharing what I have gathered. If you have a counter point based on facts, please share it. I don't have time to go around looking for 812s if I wasnt serious. At the end of the day, something appeals to me even with all these issues otherwise I'd just say "that's crazy" and move on.

Yes Porsches had issues when brand new but they don't have these primitive issues "anymore" <---- with anymore being the keyword. VW derived panamera is not a Porsche to me. 911 is what matters when it comes to this conversation and while 911s did have issues, they were in another era (literally). We are in year 2025, Ferrari knows the placement of a battery next to a V12 is not good but still does it and uses cheap copper cables that drop significant voltage. Similarly they know the way they seal their V12s is not sustainable and the rubber gaskets get cooked due to header heat and leak oil. I'm sure as they have never addressed sticky buttons or rusty body panels, they'll never do anything about the V12 that leaks oil. It's a shame because it's a great engine and an amazing car.

These issues are not acceptable and they are not because "its an exotic car". Maybe not everyone is as STEM inclined and understand basic physics so mentally they see these issues differently (expensive car can have expensive repairs) - no offense.

 

These cars you mention are 2 decades old at this point. 3 generation of 911s came after. That tells me Porsche has improved their design and tolerances have been tightened. I dont think there is any improvement you can see in a Ferrari in the same regard. Give it a year or two and some more miles, the DCT issues of the getrag box will start popping up here as well with weephole problems and broken gaskets and high cost of rebuilds. The transmission hasnt changed at all in 15 years now minus some minor tweaks. The engine design is even older. The older FF, F12, Lusso all exhibit same transmission problems when they start crossing the 7-8 year or 25k mile mark.

I’d post the pictures of the internals of the V12 and compare it to other brands here (I have pictures of those as well) but I was asked not to share these pictures.

 

I didnt forget about the GT3 engine problems. But lets discuss that. What did Porsche do in this case? They have acknowledged the problem, gave everyone (including people whose car has no problem) new engines. Then they gave the entire 991.1 run 10 year warranty for free. Then they admitted the flaws of the engine (even publicly) and redesigned it completely in 991.2 generation.

I dont ever see Ferrari admitting any flaws of anything they do. Culturally they are a completely different company.

On a side note, “engineering” and “art” dont really make sense in the same application. Some engineering choices will not look good as engineers will optimize performance and other “tangible” attributes over else. In the case of Ferrari V12, the intake manifold weighs over 22 lbs which is insanely heavy. It looks pretty yes and maybe expensive but I wouldnt really call that design choice makes much engineering sense if any.