355 Spider Seat Position Sensor Fix

For those of you with F355 spiders, you can sympathize with my continuing headache with the seat position sensors that fail, which then make the seats and/or the top inoperable. In fact, mine were failing so often and at such inopportune times that I had built a little switch with a cigarette lighter adapter on one end and alligator clips on the other so I could manually move the seats when necessary, bypassing all the Ferrari electrics and powering the seat motors directly.

I have replaced or repaired these sensors numerous times in my 7 years of ownership and there have been related threads on FChat about converting the 355 into a manual top to avoid the headache. I think I have found a more permanent fix and wanted to share it.

A gentleman by the name of Jeff Carriker at Carriker's Automotive Repair in Asheboro, NC is rebuilding the sensors such that the part that fails (a small plastic ball/socket clutch inside the sensor) is no longer used. This should fix the problem indefinitely (assuming the seat track mechanism is never jammed on anything under the seat, which Jeff points out). Jeff had me remove the seat tracks from the bottom of my seats and send them to him. He rebuilt the sensors and I had my rails back in a couple of days. He needs the whole rail (rather than just the sensor) so that he can zero in the potentiometer to match the seat travel (something the old but crappy clutch mechanism automated). Then you just reinstall the seats and all is well - no SD2 needed or anything else complex. If you're handy with a voltmeter you could probably zero them yourself, but removing the rails wasn't awful.

He charges $350/seat, which seems like a lot, but the sensors are around $160 each at Ricambi and mine were lasting, on average, about 18 months. Multiply that by 2 seats and it pays for itself quickly enough. Moreso if you've ever been stuck with your knees wedged in the dash and the sky threatening rain when the sensors quit (the top emergency switch won't move the seats). Jeff is trying to get a couple of sets of tracks converted so that he can just send them to people and take their tracks back as a core exchange.

He can be reached at (336) 629-2886.

Anyway, the long-term durability of the fix is yet to be proven for me, but I'll keep everyone posted. So far I'm a happy customer.

 

Forgot to mention that Jeff warranties the fix for 5 years.

Can't think of anything else that would've worn out my sensors prematurely, except that I drive the car as much as possible and so put comparatively more "miles" on the top and seat mechanisms than many.