Why are Ferraris so much trouble ?

I think Ferrari suffers from the same thing anything "Italian" suffers from, they are damm pretty to look at but dont look to hard otherwise something will eventually break. One of these days people will stop putting up with the crap and stop spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for these cars and maybe than Ferrari will get the message, but in all honesty they are doing MUCH MUCH better than the eariler cars were. But as long as there are enough car nuts like myself that will put up with the BS of owning one as well as the pleasures than I am sure they will continue to be produced haphazardly.

 

Any hand built car is going to have issues. In terms of racing durability, I'd like to see a road-going Ferrari last any longer than a few seconds at 19,000 RPM.

Beyond that, the F1 engines are junk after a few races, so I think that reliability in terms of Ferrari road cars are pretty good given the fact that they are hand built and can go as far as 10k miles before a major.

You can't compare a small volume manufacturer with a large volume manufacturer. Sure, that little Subi can go 100k miles before a belt change. If you are wrong, you are out 5k for a new engine. If you are wrong with a modern Ferrari, you can be out 30k+ if it is out of warranty. Sure, owners of Ferraris can absorb the cost of a new engine, but I'd wager that most of them got rich by knowing the value of the dollar, and the smart money is in new belts for 3-5k every 2 years versus a 30k bill for new bits. That's cheap insurance, especially when you consider that a few small engine bits for a 360 can pay for an WRX.

 

Also comapre how an EVO or an WRX sounds with a TUBI vs a 348/355 with this exhaust system.

 

Totally agree with you... if you are talking about newer Ferraris, 1990 up till now. wait till you hear how much the major service cost for the new F430, it should be a big laugh...
The Japaness is catching up. I was in serch for the best fast bike these last few weeks. To my conclude and everyone else's, The Ducati and MV Agusta is the best overall speed bikes in the world..... but not at all as fast or reliable or cheaper to maintain as the much cheaper Japaness bikes. Will it ever come to a car where they are saying that the Ferrari is best overall but not at all as fast as the Japaness makes?... I bet we're getting there....

 

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Ever owned one of those "Quadzillas"?

After 15 years, my Celica AllTrac Turbo (aka "GT-Four") was impossible to service. The dealer did more damage than "service" on it. I had to replace it with an EVO8 (only recently available in the 'states).

My 328 was 12 years old when I bought it. I've owned my Alfa Spider for 25 years, and it's still going strong.

I don't expect to get even ten years out of the EVO. Compared to the Celica, it seems awfully fragile. Tires that last maybe 6000 miles - clutches going in the first 15K, etc. Ask a USDM STi owner about heat soaked intercoolers and fragged gearboxes.

When you push any car to peak performance, you need some good engineering to keep the parts from breaking. That's why I prefer cars with racing heritage: WRC for the EVO and GT-Four, F1 and sportscars for Ferrari and Alfa ... in the past.

I wouldn't touch those Fiat-ized FWD boxes that carry the "Alfa" name, today. And Ferrari has discovered that it has to return to racing (other than F1) to keep the street cars up to standards.

In my experience, the least reliable parts on Italian cars are the ones "slapped on" to meet government regulations: emissions, auto seatbelts, etc. (The "key warning" buzzer on the Alfa broke when it was five days old ... just before I was going to tear the annoying @#$% out anyway. ) Maybe because the "add-on" parts weren't wrung out on the racing circuits.

And the "unreliable" Italian cars are the ones that had bare minimum service.

The difference being that most Japanese cars will degrade slowly when "off song". Italian cars' performance plummets when service is skipped.

And when parts break in use, they take others with them. That applies to the super-ricers, too. When the turbo went off in the Celica, it melted the (plastic) radiator. When an engine mount went in the Alfa, it took out the radiator, the fan and shroud, and the water pump.

Maintained to the same standards, the Celica wasn't any cheaper to maintain than the Italians.

And that's probably the issue: Maintenance on, say, a Camry or a PT Cruiser, just isn't done to the same criteria as on a top performance car. If an SUV runs at all, it's "good enough".


Cars work better when maintained.

Some cars are designed to degrade slowly over five years or so.

Others are in it for the long haul.

 

and you don't even need to change belts and tensioners on those either.

 

Ferrari makes beautiful cars (until recently) that feel like nothing else on the road. I don't know of any owner who would place "reliability" at the top of the reasons why they bought the car.

There's fewer 360s in the world than the number of Scoobies punched out in a week. The testing just isn't there on low production cars, and the Italian car industry as a whole has never been known for perfection in manufacturing.

That all said, my 328 has proven very reliable, because it's a very basic car. The newer ones with electronic differentials and 5-way traction control may be different, but that's still to be seen.

Bottom line, you buy a Ferrari because you want one, not because it makes any sort of logical sense. These cars aren't for everyone, and that's why there's 17.6 billion GM products on the street

 

Hello.

Service intervals for a Mitusbishi Evo are 7000-10.000 kilometers! (4300-6200 miles!)
Okay, that is only for an oil-change, but they are very important for these small high performance engines. If you tune these engines to 340 hp then you will need to service them even more.

And these cars eat all 4 of their tyres. Ferrari's mostly 2.

 

:chokesontea: er, not quite all of us actually!

That's why I will keep getting my belts changed a little bit earlier than they should.

The thing with buying a Ferrari is that you are paying for a little piece of automotive history on one hand, and an outstanding piece of automotive art on the other.

Very few marques, if any, can match the feeling you get when you sit behind the wheel of a Ferrari and turn the key... having a 348 with no cats and a Tubi helps considerably with this also

I had mine 3 weeks and did 3500 miles hammering it across Europe and up and down the Alps of Switzerland and Italy, 70-80 in second gear between the hairpins, getting pulled (and let off!) by a traffic car at 162mph, and all it sufferred was some boiled brake fluid (since upgraded) and a loose bolt in the aircon compressor. (bearing in mind the previous owner had only done 2000 miles in the whole of the previous year!)

Keep them serviced and they are more than capable of doing the big miles.

Mines just been in for a 6k service and needed no extra mechanical work. The bill would have been £600 / £1000 dollars(?) er, except i seem to have gone through a new set of rear p-Zeros in just 7000 miles... but it was fun!

 

Ferraris have never been the absolute fastest or most reliable sports car in the marketplace. In the 1960s, Amercian muscle cars were much faster in terms of acceleration and Lotuses could probably outhandle them. However, in my opinion, Ferraris are the most fun to drive and own, with a wonderful blend of performance, styling, sound and "feel". Ferrari wouldn't still be in business and thriving if they didn't produce something special. However, if you don't have (or want to spend) the money to maintain them or if you absolutely must have the car with the fastest quarter mile time (or whatever), you should probably buy something else.

 

Au contraire, race engines are built light and to last the minimum distance or time before they need to be rebuilt.

Yes, if you wack on a turbocharger, which these two engines have.


Ferrari engines are highly stressed and need a little pampering to ensure they continue to run well. If you want tough and reliable, buy a Toyota Camry, but it won't give you 110hp per litre at close to 9000rpm.

IMO they are very well engineered. They suffer the same problems other engines suffer but these problems tend to manifest themselves much later than on a unit thats built in the hundreds of thousands a year and covers on average 10 times the mileage of a Ferrari.

Its all relative, but when you get behind the wheel of your own Ferrari you suddenly don't really care anymore

 

Who cares what it costs to maintain?

Nothing looks, sounds or drives like a Ferrari experience.
Nothing remotely has the heritage that Ferrari has.

If you don't get it- to bad. Don't buy one.

 

You buy a print of a great work of art, or you can buy the real thing. Some people just aren't the fine art types, which is fine. Some people are, and for them the value is there, but if that doesn't resonate with you it's possible it never will.

Forced induciton and natural aspiration are two different animals. 300 from a 2.0 is impressive, but then again the F40 was pumping out nearly 500 from a 2.9... almost 20 years ago.

 

DGS, Toyota parts are major bucks but the cars last close to forever, so IMO, that is why the maintenance between a Toyota and an Fcar are pretty darn close to one another. I own both so I can relate closely to your points. I am amazed at Toyota's level of engineering.

 

I think PISTOLE's questions are quite valid. It is interesting to hear what different people have to say in response, and it's entertaining to watch the biased comments..

 

As non-Ferrari owner I notice alot of Ferrari owners who sometimes get stuck with a "bad egg from the egg batch". Anyone know what kind of test measures Ferraris undergo to make certain that every Ferrari model is built to the exact specifications of another Ferrari model on the same assembly line?

BTW, GREAT post, Pistole.

 

That's just it though - they are not built on an assembly line as such. They are, for the most part, hand built cars. This is both a plus and a negative but does go some way to explaining the endearing soul of every Ferrari motor car.

Probably only the English guys will get this, but Fiat had a great slogan when they launched the Coupe back in '96 ish...

"Italians don't grow up wanting to be train drivers".

 

Service and maintenance costs for an Fcar can be quite jarring to one used to low-maint cars like Toyota. I still remember the huge expenses I accumulated keeping my first Ferrari (308 GTSi) on the road years ago. So was it worth it? In retrospect, not really since it detracted from my enjoyment of the car (i.e., the feeling that every time I took it out something else might go wrong). It all once again boils down to opportunity cost--reliable vs visceral, anonimity vs attention, cheeseburger vs filet mignon, etc. Weigh what is more important to you and then make your choice.

Good luck!

 

I think Ferrari doesn't intent to make a car for everyday drive, all weather, low maintenance cars. You can surely use it for everyday drive & under most weather (w/ more cost than, say, Toyotas), but that's not their main goal, I think. Ferrari's priority is for winning races, so it makes sense that they don't put priority on everyday drive reliability.

I do wish Ferrari has low cost for maintenance, but w/ the current production numbers, they cannot compete w/ mass producing cars for service cost, parts cost, etc.

Some car companies should be evaluated higher for producing fast, everyday drive, and low maintenance cars. (Like Subaru) But I never heard some Ferrari owners saying Subaru is better than Ferrari.

I think Honda & Toyota will be a historical car makers for winning F1 & other races, along w/ getting highest reliability rating for production cars SOMEDAY.

 

I had to respond to this - the NSX is also hand built, and has as few issues as any car on the road. Its JD Power numbers have been right up there with a new Lexus.

That, plus the 60K service is about a grand, and the timing belt/water pump is maybe $1300. How does that compare w/ a Ferrari?

This is why I drive an NSX, and while I love Ferraris and think they are magical, I will probably never own one.

 

Because they are poorly made Italian cars. But, they are magical to drive.

 

Ferrari are now far from being a hand built car. They do have some hand assembly but to call them hand built is a bit of a streach. Ferrari quality and engineering also must be called into quesion. There are many parts of the cars that are desirned very poorly..take the 360's door handle mechanisim as one very annoying issue.
Also the quality control seems to be a second page item on the to do list at Ferrari. Some of the enigines I have taken apart have showen really lousy assembly with nuts being found loose or some metal flakes in the pan from poor cleaning of components after the machning process.

With the now high production numbers that Ferrari is doing these cars have become just another used car on the lot. With 11k 355s and 17k 360's running around..there are a ton of cars to choose from. But with these higher production numbers better reliability should come with it. But even though Ferrari new about the valve guide issues in with the 95 series 355's it took them 4 years to really correct the issue. Instead of emptying the bins which were full of crumby guides and filling back up with the better guide, the chose to contiune to pound the crappy guides into the heads..this is one thing, of many. Why is it that my Benz with almost 400km on the clock just 2 month ago spit the water pump? That pump was 13 years old..driven daily, and with out a coolant change in 5 years. Why can't Ferrari make a pump like this? I think they can but they don'r. Why because it too expensive. They would rather go the cheapo route and save a few more bucks for their F1 racing team.

 

Tom you are right in almost every way. I will add that Ferrari knows exactly what the problems are, they get reminded every day, they just don't care. Why should they? They have no incentive to. People line up around the block and beg to pay a premium to be given the privilege to own one. What kind of message is that. I've heard some of that companys closed door opinions and they are not very nice when it comes to their customer base.

 

Your generalization regarding Ferrari quality should be tempered by other car manufacturer quality. What make Ferrari quality issues stand out are directly related to:

1.perception (an unreliable car),

2.limited production (failure of one or 5 is magnified),

3.cost of the car(if it cost this much it should be bullet proof),

4.the car is basically a racing machine designed to provide excitement, passion and fun. A car of this nature will be by definition subject to some mechanical issues just like every other high performance car. It is not a Lexus and never will be nor intended to be, and

5.envy (nothing would make some people happier than to see a Ferrari towed)

All these factors have brainwashed people in thinking Ferrari is a maintenance nightmare.

Have you bought a MB recently? Have you heard of the RMS problem with the 996 and 997 Porsche? The Porsche Cayenne which I own has been in for service so often I have given up counting.

When I bought my new Ferrari I was called by survey company several times as follow up regarding the car. Additional, if I took the car in for service, I once again was called by Ferrari and asked about my service experience.

Ferrari actions as related to me certainly belie the myth that service and quality are not priority items.