1997 F355 Spyder - A good year to purchase or Not?

I had looked at 355 Spyders for some time and found there were two main issues:

Valve guides fail in some 355s, 1995-1998 vintage although it seems to be more prevalent in the 95 and 96 cars. Ferrari switched over to a new steel sinster guide in the second half of 1998.

Headers burn out. I believe this was a problem through the entire range but you can get after-market replacements that have corrected the design flaw.

There are also a number of more minor annoyances including top mechanisms, sticky consoles, stretching dashboard leather etc

Do a search and you can find more info.

 

Beautiful car, but expensive to maintain. Make sure 30k service was recently completed or deduct that from the selling price.

 

I have a '99 GTS F1. If you look in history in FChat there is a load of information on this subject. To sum it up quickly: Go after '98 on

Many of the "issues" are somewhat corrected.

Get someone to go over the car. If you do not know the history of the 355's you better have someone guide you in this purchase. I looked for about 3/4 of a yr for the right 355 before I signed the check.