550 Prices April 2020

Exactly the same as last month. It's unlikely to change either all the time the market is very restricted due to varying levels of lock down around the planet.

I can't see there being any sort of material change until life returns to some sort of normality, people then get the opportunity to figure out exactly how financially distressed they are and stuff will start to hit the market.

Keep your powder dry it'll be some months before the re rating actually takes place on cars of this type.

Of course new stuff that's been high leveraged on finance will react far faster as people find themselves unable to service the debt. I'd imagine a far higher percentage of 550's are owned outright than newer models.

 

Some good recent stats posted (by Alan and others) in the Maranellos are disappearing thread.

 

You'll need to wait 6 months to a year to get any proper Covid-19 influenced stats on these cars. Right now nothing is listing or selling.

 

Ryan,

If you are paying cash and want a deal you may want to consider a 1996 Japanese model 550 and import it. Quite often the cars come with pages of mechanical receipts.

The Japanese 456GT is also a good buy. The market also has 1994 models with the 6spd. The 456 is a bargain. It’s less than a 2006 Z06 driver. The trick is to find a good example.


A 25 y/o car is exempt from EPA/DOT permits

 

Where do you find them? I frequent TC-V and JapaneseCarTrade but there's never much on there.

 

A 1996 model 550 will probably be difficult to locate, due to limited #'s. An American buyer will probably have to wait a year or two, for the 1997's to reach the 25 year age.

Just keep searching online and or use the search feature here and look into other members posts.

I have not looked to buy a car in over a year. I ended up with a car built for the US market.

 

I recenlty sold my 97 550 for $70k here in the UAE. The car was accident free but not original paint and lacked service records but did have a massive mechanical overhaul and all bushes and tyres etc. It would have gone for $10k more but decided to overheat on the test drive. The chap buying it owned his own repair workshop so he bought it at his risk and put new head gaskets on..stunning car to drive but the coolant systems are not up to the job. I think this and all the other mechanical issues are holding back the value of these fine cars and parts are now becoming a big issue too..

 

That's really strange, I have put 40,000 miles on my ;97 550 (now in the hot desert of palm springs california) and never ever over heated. it helps to service/maintain it.

 

I would love to..but Ferrari no longer supply radiators..and this forum is littered with hose issues, overheating issues etc. It was certainly my experience and for obvious reasons...the front opening is small and the radiator is almost in a room with little to no ventilation when standing still (lower and upper covers) . Anything that could go wrong on my cooling system did...rad, leaking waterpump, split pipe, bad hoses..you name it...ditto on the bad fuel pumps also with lots of NLA parts that make up the pump holders....

 

Again, weird. I've driven her from NY to Cali and back, twice. No overheating ever. Does your service shop source the parts and hoses from Racambi? Bradan Coachworks who last serviced our jet I believe gets everything from there or Superformance if I'm not mistaken.

 

There's solutions to all of the issues you've listed from what I understand.

Scuderia Rampante hose kits.
Billet machined fuel pump caps.
etc.

UAE is also probably one of the harshest environments these cars are ran. If I'm not mistaken...cars destined for the region are equipped with heavier duty cooling and air conditioning systems.

 

Hi. I don't mean to talk these wonderful cars down- they are stunning to drive and beautiful to look at..a true GT but with excitement of a proper sports car...and the manual transmission and beautifully metered fuelling leads to a stunning and fluid drive which must have been a total revelation in 1997.

However, as an ownership proposition they are expensive and the very fact that they need these alternative fixes highlights the issues. The cooling system is under engineered for extremes (which is surely the point of engineering!). Yes, they hold temps fine when moving but when not when its hot outside (and granted it gets very hot here) they cannot cope as heat simply builds and has no where to go. I checked for uprated cooling for the region but no such thing existed. This extreme heat results in the eventual failure of the cooling components and then onto the head gaskets etc.

I was tempted to throw all the fixes at it as it was such a stunning machine but in the end we have the most incompetent mechanics to compound the problem. At one point I did contact Bradon to see if we could ship the car for a full and final fix but in the end I decided to cut my loses and put the money toward for a later 458 ..and that's the alternative that people may chose as life just becomes easier..a possible answer for the price reductions..

 

Was the car a factory delivered UAE car or a personal import from elsewhere at some point in it's life?

This might have a bearing on the cooling system the car had. As mentioned in this thread already, middle eastern markets got enhanced cooling systems.

 

Its a European delivery car. Saying that they didn't make GCC spec spec cars as such then (small market) . Plus there is no enhanced cooling systems for these cars. If there was then US cars would be the same as those are designed for temperatures equivalent to the ones here (death valley etc).. The positive of the car was it had great AC!

Please do a search on 550 overheating...there are many many threads.

 

You are probably right that there was no enhanced cooling systems in that era for the Gulf. Maybe it started with the 575 or even 612.

That said I run my car pretty hard and I have never had any cooling issue but the most I'm dealing with is ambient temperature of about 35*C.

Your environment is very hard on all aspects of all cars...paint, gaskets, rubber parts especially. I think that plays a role in why cars from the region are valued lower as well.

 

We do indeed have the cheapest Ferrais in the world here..lack of financing, high insurance rates, the need for the latest, rubbbish after sales and 2x parts prices sees to that..the good ones eventually get shipped out.

 

Many of the overheating problems on our V12s were caused by lack of regular coolant changes when relatively new because changes are not in the maintenance recommendations.

 

Kris, when and what did you sell your 550 for if I may ask. Thanks, Doug Moffat

 

I sold my 67k mile 550 for around$87k in 2017. It was in pristine condition and if I hadn't needed the money for another project I'd had kept it.

 

Exactly, Taz. The cooling system is typically one of the most under-maintained of all systems on most cars, especially in recent years since OEMs started using "lifetime" coolant in new cars. Most owners don't think about it and most Ferraris hardly get driven in the first place, so cooling systems and coolant aren't much on the radar. If the coolant does get changed probably a lot of shops won't know to use the right type of coolant. Over time the coolant degrades, and this combines with electrolytic corrosion to degrade the entire system. It is more of an age related problem now than mileage, as Maranellos are between 15 and 23 years old, and it's particularly a problem in cars that sat for months and years at a time and never had proper, consistent maintenance. It's almost to be expected these cars will have cooling system problems at this point.

 

Luckily, I got mine when she was only 4 years old and the G05 was changed then and every 2 years since.

 

Would it be fair to say the top of the 550 market in the US is $140k?


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Well, the last 550 Maranello to sell on BaT went for $120K ($115K sale price + $5K BaT buyer fee) on 5/8/20. That was a Grigio Titanio/Nero 20K mile car in very nice condition with excellent maintenance records, so you're probably at least in the ballpark.

The 4K mile 575M F1 that sold the other day on BaT for $156K would surely represent the top of the market for 575 F1 cars, but it was something of a special case as it was bid up by several determined bidders including its original owner, Bobby Rahal (via his son Graham), who clearly was willing to pay up to get it back.

 

What about a 10k miles car with all services and records?


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