Do you trust your 360?

Greetings! This is my first post here as the new owner of a 360 Spider (TDF Blue, Tan, factory gated). The car has been checked out and is in great shape.

Having previously owned several 911s, including most recently a 997TT, I am adjusting to Ferrari life. I use the car for local errands and transportation, not commuting, almost every day. I love the sound of the V8 and the feel of the gated shifter. I am not used to, however, allowing a car to warm up for 10 minutes before pushing it, to sticky buttons, to the occasional rattle here and there, and to feeling like I am driving something incredibly fragile.

My question for you as an owner: is this an adjustment period (I know, it's not a Porsche) that should not affect my faith in the car, or is this the wrong car for my application? Thanks, in advance, for your thoughts!

 

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beautiful car. have the oem headers been swapped out? if so you shld be good. if it was f1 you wld have to worry about the actuator going but since you are gated you are good.
the convertible top will be a pia but it wont leave u stranded, maybe just wet if the clouds come.

 

and pls let me know if you ever sell it

 

I actually went through a similar feeling, as I went from Porsches to a 430. Maybe I was nervous about all the Italian car horror stories and fears of big repairs, but my senses were overly looking for what I thought might be odd sounds or feelings in the car. Rest assured they are not fragile, and enjoy being pushed. There isn’t a whole lot of sound deadening material in a 360 vs a 911, so you’ll naturally hear more noise. It’s way worse in a Scud or CS where you can hear every grain of sand in the wheel wells. Once you acclimate to it, you’ll be hooked and never look back. Beautiful 360 btw!!!

 

the pebble sounds of a CS/Scud either build character or destroy it! the 360 is very livable!

 

I don't trust mine yet. At all. LOL

 

I have had mine coming up to two years now!!
Even though it has never broken down or really done anything wrong it always leaves me with a little niggle in the back of my mind when starting it or driving it!!
But so far it's been fairly well behaved!!
They do like to be driven and I always make sure it gets driven at least every 3 weeks and this does seem to keep the wheels turning etc.

 

I've had mine 2 years - 2001 360 Spider, gated. Never left me stranded, but it's shut off on me, overflowed coolant, top stops working, SLOW DOWN lights are a regular thing. The list goes on. Fix one thing, another thing breaks. Still love it, but every Porsche I've owned has been much more reliable and cheaper.

 

I like you had a P-car prior to my 360. I traded my 993 for my current 2003 360 F1.
This is my take...
The 993 was a wonderfully reliable car. It was easy to drive at limit and yet I felt, ahem, dare I say, that it began to feel boring to me. The 360 is to me more of a true exotic car. It is fast and powerful and can get you in trouble if you are not on your A game when pushing it. It was a bit of an adjustment at first but after 6 years of driving it, I'm not looking back. I have learned that there are certain nuances with the car, especially with the F1, that you have to learn. But once you learn to drive the car the way it wants to be driven and not the way you are determine to make it behave, you will see just what a great car it is-- even if it is an F1

I have a good 360. There are some here that say they bought a good car, low mileage, records and still have had nothing but trouble. Seems like buying a "good one" or a "headache" is a pretty random situation with these 360s. Go figure.

I bought a car with decent records and only a few owners who respected the car and drove it as such. My maintenance has been the usual-- and I'm fine with that. Do I trust the car? I do. But with that said it is a 21 year old car. Can you really expect a 21 year old car (or older 360) to be "trustworthy"? Things happen and wear out on any 20 year old car. I think folks sometimes forget the years on the road and only look at the mileage. 20 years+ takes its toll on hoses, belts, electronics, etc. all of which couldn't care less if the car has 10K miles or 50K miles on the odo.

Life is full of adventures. If you get broke down, it's just another story you have to tell. Like the time my Benz overheated in January on a desolate highway when there were no such things as cell phones.
I used a blender jar ( a birthday gift still in the trunk) and a rope to retrieve water from a canal nearby.
Oh yeah, that happened and there's a lot more to that story...

 

Wonderful looking car! I bought my gated blue 360 Spider last July and although I've had issues with the convertible top, the car itself has performed very well. I've taken it on several day trips ~ 100-200 miles each and it's a joy. I daily drove my Porsche 997 for about a year, and I certainly wouldn't do that with the 360, but I'm comfortably on pace to log about 4k miles on my 360 this year. Drive it, take care of it, should be a great car for you.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence! Everything remains stock, even the headers. Will consider Tubi or Capristo if I decide to keep it.

 

...and this distrust has been going on for how many years?!

 

Sounds alot like where I am. I hate worrying about stuff like this. Hence, my long-time Porsche ownership. The real question: is it worth it?

 

Thanks Robert. So it sounds like the love for your 360 despite its "flaws" outweigh the reliability of the P-car. Is that fair?

 

Many thanks for your reply. In your case, the move to the 360 was to something newer. You're right about the age of the car. I like that the car requires my full attention and that I can go slower than I do in the 997 to get a thrill. Are we defining breakdowns as adventures now?

 

Thank you for your encouraging words. The convertible top, ugh. The car has 8k miles on it and it has two tears in the seams of the rear window. What would a German engineer think about this?!

 

Oh yeah. The 360 has always been my dream car, always the one I was striving for. It's a headache, but it is my headache, and the driving experience is so fun. Top down, manual shifter, some music you can barely hear over the Tubi behind your head. But there are always a few little (or big) things to fix.

A 911 (to me) has never inspired the passion this car does. They're great cars though, you can daily a 911, track a 911, it's a better overall car than the 360, but it's just a 911 in the end.

Edit: also to answer the question - yeah I generally trust the car, the more I drive it, the more I trust it. I drove it everyday for over 2 weeks when one of the cars was in the shop, and had no issues at all. Some of the issues were my fault (driving too hard, ignoring electrical errors). Some are just due to age.

 

When shopping for my 360, the least problematic model seemed to be a gated coupe, so I ended up with a 2004 gated coupe. I had no mechanical issues with it, but maintenance costs were higher than I had ever spent before on any vehicle (always took it to a Ferrari dealer for maintenance).

Later I sold it and bought a 911 Carrera Cab, also a great car, cheaper to maintain (well, it was brand new).

The 360 was much more fun, and nothing beats the sound at high RPM. The Porsche was, well, a Porsche - reliable, and easy to drive.

Why did I go from an FCar to a Porsche? - unwanted attention. The 360 attracted a fair amount of attention, and I didn’t really feel comfortable parking it most places. With the 911, I became invisible and could park it anywhere.

Congrats and enjoy your car, as noted above there will be issues that come up, but that is just part of the experience. :>)

 

13+ years with my 360. The closest I've been to stuck was from a flakey key fob a few months ago. I was able to walk to a local store and get a fresh battery in it although I think the actual problem might have been the barest bit of corrosion on the battery tabs. Come to think of it, I should leave one in the car.

Regarding the 10min thing (waiting for oil temp, I assume): my VW can display true oil temp on the gauge and it turns out it takes nearly 10min for that car to register 120F oil temp too. I go easy on it for about the same amount of time.

I went from a 996 GT3 to my 360. It's Grigio Titanio so it probably gets less attention than most.

 

That about says it..."the more I drive it the more I trust it." Thank you!

 

What great perspective, thank you. So far, it hasn't been the big attention magnet I feared. Then again, I live in SoCal and here it's just another Ferrari, and a 23 yr old one at that.

 

...and, for you, the 360's ride must seem cushy compared to the 996 GT3's. I had a 997.1 GT3, and my wife used to say she hated it because she could feel every bump on the road. (And, of course, I would say I loved it because I could feel every bump on the road.)

 

Owning these cars is like being in a relationship. Takes a while to get use to all the sounds and noises, but eventually you settle in and know exactly what to expect. Sometimes you get a crazy one that keeps you guessing. It's fun at first, but becomes tiresome after a while. Sometimes, you get one that's ready to settle down and makes sure to tell you what she wants before things break. From my time on the forum, I've yet to read any prevalent issues that are of major concern. It's mostly just stuff that comes with owning any 20 year old car.

 

Absolutely. In retrospect, the GT3 was a poor choice for me. I felt like it was really only fun when driven completely inappropriately and I had no intention of bringing it to the track. The 360 is fun all the time. My buddy had a 997.1 GT3 later and I thought it was a little more civil although it seemed to be even lower in front.

I never found a goldilocks 911. The same friend with the 997 GT3 had a 996 TT when I had my 996 GT3. I thought it was boring to drive. We put an exhaust on it, which made it loud and boring.