A Ferrari (or any car for that matter) that has seen regular usage and has been serviced regularly is going to cost more to buy and is less likely to have new issues arise in the future. Its not that they won't happen, its that regular use and service will decrease the probability that they happen. Could you spend 80k on a car with a perfect service history and still have a major issue next week? Sure. However its alot less likely than on car that hasn't been driven or serviced for years. This seems to be the fundamental issue you're having. You seem to think the 360 is worth less than what the market thinks and that those ones that are well cared for are 'overpriced'.
Exactly, and that really has been the main gist i've been trying to make Admittedly, I bought the first car cheap and blind. It was a bag of junk. My bad. Maybe...I should have expected that (even though I would argue that what you should expect from any trader is clearly NOT this, but then that's another debate about professional responsibility etc etc - the car was higher mileage. Higher mileage shouldn't automatically = piece of junk, regardless of marque.. damn my innate naivety..) Second car I did everything "the right way" and we are still really at the same place. Two cars over a 6 month period and I'd say i've had about 3 weeks combined use from them
When you decide to post on a discussion board, you invite comment. Not all comments will be to your liking or will agree with your outlook. You are expected to discuss those differences without being disagreeable and getting personal in your comments.
A Ferrari that has been used more and what, presumably, has a higher mileage should cost more???? In fact, in total contradiction to this, you can have a 360 that has 5,000 miles on it, has spent the last 10 years under tarpaulin, has had virtually zero regular maintenance and that will cost you around £100k at this stage. And it's fairly rare to see a Ferrari that doesn't have a pretty meticulous service record. Most people are aware of the importance of changing belts and oil to schedule. But that is scratching the surface in terms of what these cars can need I get your point about regular use, it is good for a car (in my mind), largely because the **** that happens gets fixed over time. But when it comes down to it, no dealer can ask for more money because the car "has been used a lot." Rightly or wrongly, it tends to work the opposite way And for the record, my car has a ridiculously thorough history. I could easily count £30,000 in bills over the last 5-10 years / not very many miles. It was simply a car that wasn't selling at previous pricing points and hence, I found myself a deal..
All Ferraris cost lots of money to maintain. Speaking from 15 and 10 years experience with a 246 and a 360. Don’t buy another Ferrari on a budget. You will not enjoy it.
it was a completely lazy, vacuous aphorism and was treated as such. nothing personal in the slightest.
So "all Ferraris...?" - even those bought not on a budget...? By golly, I think we're reaching a consensus here!?
Ugh. and THIS is why this thread is so circuitous and never really gets anywhere. Supposed completely lazy, vacuous aphorisms are permitted by the forum rules, whereas personal attacks are not.
Furthermore, the point made was actually not particularly factual as I managed to work the trader down from £60k (window price) to £50k So is £60k now classed as "budget money?" I think there are a lot of people willing to blindly defend the honour of Ferrari (which is fine..), but I am just presenting facts here. Sure it may *feel* like a polemic, but iI am just reporting from the field. Albeit, I'm not a particularly happy Ferrari owner at present, which is obviously part of it
Why is this worthless and uninformative thread still active? Summary: One guy in the UK thinks Ferrari 360's shouldn't be "worth" what the market is pricing them. He thinks dealers should be good and sell their cars to him at what he thinks they should. The rest of the world, i.e. the market, apparently disagrees. Then when he finally does find an example at a price he and the seller agree to... it breaks. Now he's not happy and on a tirade. All the other owners (such as this one) who have good experiences are sitting back shaking their head at his generalizations.
I'm reporting from "the field" too. No problems in 8 going on 9 years of ownership. In my experience the 360 is as reliable as my Boxster or Cayenne. Not quite like my 997.. I personally think that when Ferrari used to be owned by real car people, who understood cars.. they used to do their own repairs. Now you have a lot of people who can't fix anything owning a Ferrari. They don't understand the car, are not car people, and compare engineering that's apples to oranges. You know.. Camry to 360 comparisons. It doesn't show the Ferrari is a bad car, it shows ignorance of the engineering that's involved... ignorance that is taken advantage of by mechanics who can detect said ignorance. FYI peeps they made about 11,265 355's, and about 16,000 360's. A bump up, but an ongoing increase in production...
When I bought the cheapest 360 in the country and it blew up, I immediately went to the bar and waited for a tow truck instead of trash talking the brand....
This thread is like when you read a scathing online review of an otherwise well-regarded restaurant, and within the first two sentences you start feeling sorry for the restaurant staff that had to deal with the reviewer.
https://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/ferrari/360/ferrari-360-spider-manual/9797323 This one looks quite nice plus reasonable price.Took me around 3 minutes to find it.
Watch out. It's cheap. It'll obviously break...... No photos as a) I'm not 12 years old and b) this isn't meant to be a discrimination against individual actors. It's just a report of my ownership. Just like Pistonheads will have case studies about cars and ownership over time and everyone here will lap it up as useful information? Now I have yet to have the latest issue diagnosed.. But what if this second car also has issues relating to bad variators? That would make 2/2 with phase variator / timing issues? For those looking to get into this field, spending hard-earned money on something they assume will bring happiness to their life.. Might that not be useful to actually digest and take into account before making any purchase..? Someone saying WELL MY CAR DIDN'T BREAK SO EVERYONE ELSE MUST BE A WHINING IDIOT is about as pathetically useless and counterproductive as it gets. When I was buying 996/997 era Porsches I had my eyes WIDE OPEN regarding IMS failures and even made the ceramic bearing update to my old Boxster. This was all thanks to individuals coming forward online and reporting their experiences. It is what online communities are actually here to do. And if I am able to encourage people to work out better deals for these cars, enabling more cars to actually get out of showrooms and onto public roads then I'd be pretty satisfied with that. People need to calm down. I know Ferrari is an emotional thing but it gets crazy if you are constantly in denial because of it.
If the OP followed my advice posted much earlier in the thread he would have done the following; 1. Got local to him Ferrari factory trained specialist, Adam Eyre to do a PPI ahead of any offer for the vehicle (http://ferrariservicingcheshire.co.uk/6.html) 2. Got the said car discounted by the amount of work necessary to bring it back from languishing for 2 years undriven. 3. Paid Adam to do the necessary remedial work and missed maintenance as well as shakedown test the vehicle, etc. 4. Enjoyed the vehicle pretty much trouble free. Instead he purchased a second vehicle without appropriately using the best advice given in every single buyers guide which is to don't buy the vehicle without getting a specialist whom knows the car inside out to PPI it and then get them to resolve any issues it may have. To rectify this I would call up Adam, beg him to take your car and bring it up to where it needs to be. If you don't have even a code reader and tell us what error codes are being stored there isn't much help for a resolution over the Internet.
I had the second car PPId by the most renowned specialist local to me. I would be fairly surprised if any PPI would show up this current issue. No CELs, fairly vague fault codes, only happens when giving it beans after a certain amount of time (and this amount of time seems unpredictable) And yes the car was driven during PPI as it was found to need a new throttle sensor. And it still broke. Twice.
You can take a horse to water.... If you happen to have a stubborn mule on your hands then forget it !
Who did the inspection? Not that many that I would personally recommend.. Obviously AV Engineering are far away from you in Kent but AE are fab too. AV have customers shipping cars to them from other EU countries, hell my own car lives in Isle of Man and they are the guys whom look after mine. Not all specialists are the same.
In regard to the term “used regularly” I view this differently to “used a lot”. Both terms will likely result in a more reliable car than one that is “never used” or has not been “used regularly”. I hope you get what you want out of ownership. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
I bought a car with records. I asked for copies of said records and spent a good hour or so looking at all that was done. The variators are a factory update -- and was paid for by Ferrari (so long as anyone cared enough about the car to bring it in) I saw among the paperwork that they were done. I saw that the engine and trans mounts were replaced (common problem and a point of failure). I saw that the F1 pump relay was updated to the higher amp one. These and other issues that were know to me to be potential problem areas were carefully ferreted out--- before I laid any money on the table. And the money I laid on the table was a fair price. Not cheap, not a steal, but in line with what other cars with similar mileage and condition were listed for. That's how the market works. I would have loved to pay less for my car just as anyone else would but I didn't go into this buying of a 360 with the idea that I knew every car I looked at was too much money simply because I wanted to spend less money on the car I wanted. How many miles are on the car you purchased? How many previous owners? One is really playing the odds with a car that is high mileage with little documentation and has had a long list of owners.