Electrical Systems failure Message

Software glitch. If you turn the car off and re-start it in several minutes...does the message disappear? If it happens often, I'd take it to the dealer and have them check it out.

 

Probably some kind of sensor error. I've never heard of it before but it doesn't sound serious. What does the dealer say? Call the service manager and ask him what to do. It may just need a hard reset.

The good news is that it runs fine.

My rule of thumb is: When the message says "take car to dealer", I do.

 

I have experienced this message a few times in my FF in the past, but only whilst pressing the start button. As soon as the engine started, the message disappeared. The car always ran fine, so I just ignored it. It happened four or five times within the first 3 months or so of ownership and then disappeared altogether and hasn't happened since. I just put it down to an electrical glitch that obviously cleared itself. Never caused any issues at all. Very much doubt it has anything to do with shimmying across the seats!

 

my car never does this so it is not right. If it is still under warrenty I would have a dealer look at it.

Good luck

Lee

 

I have seen that exact message twice, both times when I released the "START" button slightly too early for the engine to fire up. Shut off and reboot got rid of it. At the last routine service, the dealer found no failure code recorded by the OBD.

 

This happened to me 6-7 times and in the end I did call my dealer, they picked up my 458 and I had a bad battery even though I drive regularly and it is a brand new car / battery....once they installed a new battery, not had the warning since. Might be worth checking out.

 

Had the electrical failure warning a couple of times in past two weeks on my FF. Talked to service advisor and it's going to shop for review while I'm on vacation. Like others, the fault message disappears at restart. My car is being driven 5 days per week, so no long idle periods (but we're now at colder temperatures in 30's to 40's consistently). I did throw it on battery tender for 48 hours (was still showing 'active' charging after 2 days). Dealer thought that battery status was most likely culprit and self-checks had not complete normally.

Dave

 

I got that message once. I backed the car out of the garage and shut it off. I got the message when I restarted it. I restarted a second time and the message was gone. I asked my dealer, and he said it was because I shut the car off (after backing out of the garage) before it had warmed up. He said they run really rich at start up, and if you shut it off there will be unburned fuel that the sensors pick up as an issue.

BTW, the starter button does not need to be held at start up. Just press it and let go. It will start the car.

 

Very interesting. Thanks.

 

I realise that!

Glad that it seems to have cleared up on its own, as mine did. I think maybe Ferraris are fickle things that just have a mind of their own! Part of the fun of owning one!

Hope your car stays happy!

Mac.

 

Hi Chris,

I have a 12 Italia and eventually had the battery replaced under warranty due to a faulty cell. Prior to this I had the electrical error come up twice due to low voltage/battery strength. Once I started and reset it went away.

Since replacing the battery its never appeared again.

I have a feeling that the short stop/starts by your detailer may have temporarily drained the battery and its triggered the error message.

Good to hear its corrected itself - if it appears again def get it checked out

Cheers

 

My FF is currently having the same issue every other time I start it. The alternate time all is fine. I spoke with the dealer and he said it may be the battery. If it doesn't clear in a couple weeks I'll have it checked out.

 

My 2012 458 gave me an error message that said "system failure go to dealer". I continued to drive the car for another 100 miles back to my home (my dealer is 300 miles away) with no apparent problems. A call to the dealer asked me if I keep the car on a charger which I always do. He said that it is probably a voltage problem (battery?) and that I should not continue to drive it without the dealer checking it first.

 

i had the same issue on my 458. The dealer replaced the battery and added a pig tail for use with my battery tender charger from my F430. Have not had issues since. I think the built in charger system on the 458 has bugs.........

 

It is either a bad battery (which I had) when replaced everything was fine. Or you started the car too quickly before the system was ready too start. That has happened to me once so I waited till the warning message to be a safe driver appears than I press the start button.

 

Hi, my 2013 car does this maybe 1 in 20 starts, i've worked out that its more likely to do it if i'm in a rush and push the start button straight after turning the key. If you turn the key, put the seat belt on close door etc then push start it never brings the warning light on.

 

Don't worry about this message, 99% of the time it is caused by voltage surges, bad starts and low battery

best

 

Seems that you/the 458 itself solved it.

Had this error a few times. Battery issues and as other people have said keeping engine on a little longer or a little bit more 'sensitive' with the Ferraris compared to other cars.

If i had taken it/had the dealer pick it up every time I had this message though, the car would be there for 2-3 months due to logistics etc and I would have done 3000 less happy miles in that time. I have just learnt how to avoid these errors.

Get to know your Ferrari. It has feelings. It wants to be driven and not kept plugged in is all its saying to you

Enjoy.

Sunny

 

I've had similar experiences. My car is almost always on the battery tender overnight. About 10% of the time I'll get an error message on starting. I turn it off and restart and the problem always goes away, except twice:

1. Once soon after I purchased the car, I had a message saying that the DCT would not work (and it didn't). The dealer found that there was a wire making intermittent contact in the fuse box behind the front seat and the DCT was not getting power. Good work by FoLI in fixing this one.

2. In May ( about 2500 miles ago), I took the car on a weekend trip upstate and it was left outside on a cool night without the tender. On startup, I got a message that only "Limited" power would be available. The message did not go away and appeared instantly on restarts (before the system went through its bootup cycle). The engine ran rough and had limited power all day. I topped up the gas tank but that didn't help. The next morning (again outside with no tender ovenight) I got the same message and the engine stalled when I backed out of the parking space (this is the only time the car has ever stalled). When I restarted, the message was gone and the car ran fine -- and has ever since. My wife said that the car belched a lot of smoke on the restart, which is also unique. I still don't know what the problem was.

 

Same exact thing just happened to me in my FF. Went off once i turned the key off and back on. I feel like i just started it too quick. Not gonna lie i had a mini heart attack and said to myself "welp there goes $5 grand". LOL