Another reason to never buy an auction car!!!

NIGHTMARE!!! But, at the same time, quite a testament to the car's durability.

Even though F-cars are meant to be driven, I would not want to be that guy who bags a great deal on his new F-car from a dealer or on-line auction only to find out later the updated CarFax reflects track use (abuse). Try unloading that for anything near the same price you just paid!

I believe in some states the track use must be disclosed to subsequent buyers. I have seen a CarFax which detail a car's track use.

 

wow... good info

Beware for those who focus in finding the best deals on Fleabay... some of those are auction cars! Not great for Ferraris or any performance cars

 

I wonder if there is any on board data that would suggest that kind of usage. For example, average RPM....

OTOH I also wonder whether that kind of on-track usage really has any significant effect. Certainly clutches and syncros, rotors and pads. But without an off-track excursion I suspect the car likes it just fine. The cars are, after all, designed to survive that kind of use.

 

true to an extent, but remember owners will take care of the car better than these joy-ride specialists who will just sell at auction before any issues pop up. They probably don't do proper warm up, cool down of the engine, 4 months of hard use they stick to "normal once a year service"... I know it's all speculation but I'd assume the worst when it's these guys.

 

I travel to Vegas quite often. I had an opportunity to drive the 430 seven laps on there small race course. The cars that Exotic Racing provided were solid and performed well. Their F430 had over 50k miles on it. I asked the instructor how reliable they were and he told me that they were very reliable. He didn't have the same answer for the 458 or the Lambos. Mostly clutches on the Lambos @ 5000 miles?

They do remove the cats to keep the temps down. He also wanted me to shift around 7500 rpms and no revving the motor while sitting in the pits. All down shifts were done fairly high on the rpm scale.

Even with the cats removed, their cars didn't seem any faster than mine.

I too would not want to purchase one of their rental cars. Lots of guys just beating the **** out of these cars. But, the instructor is sitting next to you making sure you don't over do it.

 

Thanks for the great post. GQ how much did the laps cost for the 430?

 

Wow, I'm in the search for an F430 Spider as we speak, and this post scares me... Say what you want, but this is hard wear on the track for 4 months straight. Ouch. And they really must not be putting too many miles on them, but the engine/tranny sure are getting about 20K miles worth of wear in that time.

 

Let me just say...

I see at least the same if not more abuse from owners of many fine imports that think they are taking great care of their cars.

They drive them rarely, but when they do drive them - it is a lashing. No warm ups, rev-limit bashing, ham fisted driving to the extreme. These types seem to drive their cars aggressively when they are behind the wheel & never give the car a break (sound familiar?).

But - they do not maintain their garage queens like the track focused cars that are owned by enthusiast.

Anyhow, the moral of the story is:

I know dozens of cars that have been on the track since the seventies, and are STILL on the street/track today - and function just as they are expected to. Its all about how they are cared for. Track use does not ruin cars. Amateurs do.

 

+1000, I can't help but laugh at the owners that have low mile "pristine" example yet they will rev them up and peel out to impress the crowds without giving the car time to warm up....when I mention that I track my car they immediately imply that I am thrashing it, difference is that I am driving it as it was designed to be driven and maintain it accordingly as opposed to 5 miles every month at redline 50% of the time and oil change every 3000 miles LOL

 

Yea isn't there a way to check an ECU dump?

 

And I guess some the miles on the clocks disappear too ?

 

I was going to say, both coolant and oil at operating temp, fresh fluids... it's what the car was designed to do 10% of the time. Even at 70-80% redline at proper operating temp, that's expected by designers/engineers.

 

For starters, there are several posts about the $28,000 - $35,000 F1 actuator failures on 430's that have been tracked or beaten on surface streets

 

+1 Below....there's a reason my M3 was able to hold its own against the 458 on a track this year. Driver comfortable with car.

 

Thanks for the post, wow that is scary I will have to be more careful. I have been looking at F430's the past several months but only a 3 peddle car.

You talk about people bragging about how great they drive. I always thought I was a pretty good driver (but I never bragged, well maybe a little) and when I was at the Texas Highway Patrol driving course the first day out the instructor said "I see you like to drive fast". So I thought I was cool. They let you drive first to access your skills. They warned us that some people will loose their lunch, and I'm thinking not me I love to drive fast. Let's not forget we are driving Crown Vics, not a Ferrari. When the instructor drove the car, I couldn't believe that we were driving the same car. His foot was either on the floor with the gas or on the floor with the brake. And you have the siren blasting in the car lights flashing (they put the siren inside to add to the confusion) somebody talking to you on the radio, and you have to drive fast (you have to do it under a certain amount of time to pass) and safe, what an experience. The perp I was chasing in another class was blasting through red lights and stop signs but we had to slow down as to not cause an accident. One thing that I learned from that course is that even with your foot to the floor on the brakes with your ABS trying to stop you straight you can still control the vehicle well. I was blasting through a series of S-curves and I was able to steer right through them with my brake mashed to the floor.

Oh yes, I almost did loose my lunch that first day...

 

I remember seeing a car at Manheim Riverside with the "Exotics Racing" paper plate. I googled the name on my phone and guess what came up. "High performance racing school." Of course they forgot to mention "track car." Yeah, those cars get beat to hell! But they still go the distance

 

You totally beat me to it!

 

Could you point to those, please?

Thanks.

Also, if that's just for starters, what else?

 

F1 actuator/pump system is not 35k, it's a 25k repair including the clutch.

 

Whew! Good to know the repair is "only" 25 grand! That's a good way to get financially buried upside down. Interesting question about if a Ferrari shop could pull up information showing engine rpm, or speeds on a car. A friend has a full time Ferrari/Lambo repair shop, told me the data on a Lambo he was working on recently, showed it had been driven at 202mph.

 

I'd much rather have one of these than a garage queen. No question. In the computer industry, we do something called 'burn-in'where we operate all of the chips above their designed temperature and voltage specification for a period of time to weed out the bad ones. I'd consider these cars well burned in after 4 months of use like that and the weak cars and parts will have been weeded out properly.