Ferrari fanatical about engineering.

Well...they're not THAT bad. But you do have a valid point. They are better than they used to be but you are typical of today's new car buyer: you expect engineering and reliability from your new car. And a new Ferrari is $200k plus. At least they've finally trashed the stupid belts.

 

I made the original post on the K&N ad I agree with what you say to some extent.
I think with any limited production car one has these issues.

With respect though I was merely trying to point out that anyone who feels they can get more performance from a modern engine by fitting a K&N is misguided.

As for engineering on german cars one only has to look at forums on Porsche and BMW to see they are not a paragon of reliabiity and they make millions of cars.

Actually, my 99 355 has been more reliable than my toyota! and lack of use of ferrari in general is more down to owner attitudes than ability to last the course!

And lastly inteersting to note that you have now acquired a 355 spider- ferrari- not so crap after all?? if you find the issues a problem why bankroll maranello more???

always makes me laugh when you get individuals slagging the product maintaining nothing is right about it and the moment they have a chance to vote with their feet and buy a german car, what do they do____ buy another Ferrari

 

Oh didnt take it as an attack!!

I agree with what you are saying, im actually involved with a company that does engine tuning for motorsport programmes and projects for specialist manufacturers.

As a very small example , even in a very small component we can use a competition throttle pot which does the job or we can get a Bosch product, this has been lifecycle tested for 1 million wipes to ensure its integrity. GM recently gave us a gearbox and it had been used on a test rig with a robot testing the integrity of a small nylon bush for 1 month equating to 500K changes.

Thats how reliability comes. so in the case of ferrari, lambo, lotus, TVR, none of these companies can even come close and so, to some extent the customers do the deveopment work for them. Actually, whilst we all feel we pay a high price for the product, given the limited numbers they sell, to produce a vehicle right first time would cost approx 40pc more

We should all be aware of this and unless you want the frustration only buy the later years of a model run

 

If ferraris were as cheap and trouble free as say, a corvette, i dont think we would see as many dealers in business. Dealers probably make alot more money servincing cars they by selling them. I wouldnt go so far as to say that ferrari intentionally makes their cars so high maintenace.

 

I do not believe extensive testing is done on a F-car like other cars. They spend money on R&D but being a small company with very low volume I doubt you will see F shipping F-Cars to the desert or Artic for testing. They understand their client base and driving habits.

Recently Ferrari has recognized the need for a daily driving reliability and have improved the product with this in mind. Also, maintenace difficulties has been addressed. They have a long way to go and I doubt they will ever reach the levels of some other car maunufacturers.

 

IMHO I've read several posts here that point to LACK of use as being more of a problem for Ferraris. Overall people that use them ALL the time seem very happy with them. I don't think that a Ferrari will have the same reliability as a Toyota when used as a daily driver, and goodness knows maintenance costs are higher on the F-car, but when parts are not used regularly they tend not to last as long. My $.02....

 

I have owned my 328 for 15 years and tracked it for its first 6 years. I have had little trouble with it.

In my not so humble opinion and like so many other things in life, I think a lot of problems are self inflicted.

 

I've put 45,000 miles on my '88 Mondial in the last 3 years . It's my daily driver and i've not had serious problems with it. It currently has 75,000 miles on it and I don't anticipate any problems into the future.


Tom

 

You are misrepresenting what engineering is supposed to do.

Engineering at Ferrari is devoted to making things faster and lasting long enough to pass government regulations. This give us 400 HP from 3.6 litres without the use of turbo or super chargers, 8500 RPM red lines and engines that do not slef destruct at 9500 RPMs (ask me how I know).

Engineering at Toyota is devoted to getting rid of everything that would bother the driver/owner, ending up with rather bland cars that never miss a beat.

Engineering at Porsche follows the Ferrari basic model, but since Porsche is about 10X as big as Ferrari, they can devote other engineering resources into following the toyota line of reasoning. If this is what suits your fancy, then so be it. Notice that the highly limited GT3 only gets 380 HP from the same displacement that Ferrari gets 425 (360CS) at similar production count.

Given an unlimited budget, a company can do both. Ferrari does not have this kind of budget for road cars.

 

Well said Mitch.

Engineering is always a compromise.

Rob