F1 Transmission Fault

I sympathize with the owner but this thread makes me laugh. Ferrari cares less about you. They will keep your car until the warantee expires then they will fix it when you pay for it out of warrantee. It is realy stupid that Ferrari does not add an emergency pump mechanism to manually presureize the system so you can roll the car in neutral. This is the single reason I would never buy an F1 car until I could figure out how to make the tool or buy the tool so that I could do something as rudementry as roll the car onto the flatbed. 5 hours to get a team from dallas with a tool is just plan dumb. I still have two Ferraris but bought a Z06 just for laughs because it is basically as fast as if not faster than the 360 on tracks around california and while cheap they work and never fail. I would never buy a 430 with F1 electronics, ECM electronics, ABS/traction control Electronics, electronic Differential. Have you ever seen italian wiring? Think a bowl of pasta thrown against a wall! If Ferrari wants to go electronic hire some Japanese engineers and I'll buy your new Ferrars. Are you listening FNA?

 

true

 

While highly publicized the incidence of failure in the F1 system is not at the top of the Ferrari list of problems so I am not really surprised that you experienced no problems in your 355. I am not familiar with the Bently system, I suspect it is just a shifter system for a conventional automatic transmission.

About your car, I have said before, it is always easy for the guy that doesn't have to fix it especially from a thousand miles away, but figuring out a shifting problem on an F1 is usually the easiest thing to do. That is one thing the computer will just about do for you if you do a cycle test. Also as I have said here before, in many ways Ferrari support is poor to the dealers and they are in many ways on their own. Some of the service reps try to help but when I left none, zero, zip, nada, had any Ferrari experience.

 

If you did not like Italian wiring don't look at the newer cars. When they went to Delphi for wiring harnesses it got really bad. Delphi is a monster in the industry and it is the worst I have ever seen. 60's era Maserati's were aero space quality compared to Delphi.

 

Great. Out of curiosity, do you have any idea what other manufacturers use Delphi?

Gary

 

Gary I get it, Delphi is widely used in Chevy’s like the vette referred above. Even the vette, which is highly praised above, has electronic control modules.

I am not a big fan of F1 transmission (my personal preference) but the way it was condemned above while high preference is given to a vette instead makes me wonder. Especially when the original poster posed a technical question and some of the replies have been emotional rather than meaningful technical answers.

 

My boss (I manage his race team) had a '02 360 Modena F1. He was trying to race me from a stop one night by "brake torquing" the car. After waiting at this light forever he took his foot off the gas and the car died. It was in 1st gear. Stuck in first gear. We tried everything to get it out but couldn't. Tried reseting the main power, or rocking it out of gear nothing. To company wanted to drag it onto the flatbed stuck in gear. I (being an IT guy as a day-job) said, its just a computer, there must be a way to reset it. Fingered throught the manual and found an obscure sentence on what to do if car is stuck in a gear.
Step on brake
turn key to position II for 10 seconds
pull back on both paddles at same time

The car dropped right into neutral and started up fine. No problems after that. Well the Modena is gone, but its been replaced with a Challenge Stradalle, hopefully it won't have any problems.

Tom
SMS Racing

 

When my 355 was new, the original owner had almost the exact same thing happen. The problem turned out to be a loose ground strap.
Good luck,
Bruce

 

RifleDriver: That hurts me. Worse than the Masers! Say it isn't so. I've been there done that with a mid 80's Q porte and that was worse than the 348. The 348 was the last straw, but I did get it near 100% reliable. I gutted the car out to only the essential elctronics to run the engine and now it works fine. I still can't race in the rain but one of these days I'll either gut the Z06 for a racecar or gut the Ferrari electronics for a reliable Motec unit and have some hot rodding fun. From what you say here there is no hope of another Ferrari for me. Its the 60's or nothing and those just don't make very good daily drivers. From my perspective the only modern Ferari I would buy is one to gut and make a racecar

 

4i2fly: The vette is an ugly girl with a great personality. It is what it is...something you can go very fast ,"reliably" with cup holders talking on your cell phone. And the Delphi if in vettes work just like Bosch works in my BMW but suck in my 348. Ferrari must buy seconds. If you read many of my posts I am very technical and my statments are technical. It "is" dumb to have to get a team 5 hours away to tow a car when it can't be that hard to engineer a solution. Ferrari has never been worried about 15 bucks on their quasi assembly line since they multiple by 10 and sell it back to us. Do you know that there is a 90% chance I could rebuild your clutch to OEM Ferrari specs for 50 bucks and the dealer would charge you 1500 bucks or more (no labor)? Now that is what you should be wondering about. I also wonder why the FNA techs who have "this" car are replacing parts with no appearant diagnosis? If FNA was a surgeon they would be sued for malpractice and loose their licence to practice. I have been around the block for many years fixing Ferraris. I can 't tell you the number of stories of FNA dealers "part replacing" and doing repair that is "consumer acceptable". Note that I don't say mechanics because FNA is the problem. These poor mechanics are unsupported by Ferrari, and on the clock, dealing with a semi custom vehicle where nothing fits. Did you know that on some factory 308s the bonnet needs to come off or the engine shims removed to get the nuts off the air cleaner but on other 308s the nuts come right off? So if you are a mechanic it takes you 5 minutes to change a filter or 1 hour! So that is why your Ferrari is in the shop for days doing simple service. And...that's why we owners get screwed...and yes I am being emotional.

 

Tom,

This is a first thing to try probably. I do not drive a F1 so I do not know all the ins/outs of them. But your solution likely requires that the computer works and the electronics like grounds are intact. I'm not an IT guy but I beleive that it is harder to maintain proper grounds on aluminium than steel due to differences in how the two metals oxidize in the air. All of us Steel chassis Ferrari owners know how bad the Ferrari grounds can be. Who knows if in aluminium the whole situation is worse.

 

The old Quattroportes were a special case. Those were the Italian version of electrical hell. At least they were all analog. The 360 isn't bad, the 575 went over the top electronically, the new Quattroporte is absurd. It is one thing when you have a Chevrolet and have to throw a bunch of parts at it to fix it, sometimes that has to be done. But at the expense level of a modern Ferrari the cost is extraordinary. Lets just say I am aware of a 575 that was having an electrical problem diagnosed by one of the countries top mechanics. He with what little help FNA was able to give him, got nowhere in about 40 hours of work. Ferrari spa then sent 3 or 4 "Engineers" from the old country to have a look. LOTS of parts and about a week later they had the car fixed. How would you like to be the owner if it was not covered by warranty.

BTW the dealer did not get warranty reimbursement from Ferrari.

As much as I like much of the technology and the fact that I am not intimidated by it does not mean I don't think it has gone too far. I will make this prediction, write it down. When we are burning our last gallons of gasoline it will not be with 575's and C6 Corvettes, it will be with 275's and 68 Impalas.

 

fatbillybob: Having owned a Ferrari for the last few years I have had my share of FNA bu11$h!t, I spare you the details...I am technical enough to know a thing or two about troubleshooting. I agree it is not good practice for techs shot gunning components to see if the problem gets fixed...they don't get the proper support/equipment to their job right...FNA is another middleman for Ferrari spA who designs and manufactures these cars...I have come to realize they don't usually know jack$h1t either when it comes to troubleshooting these cars while the problem is out of the ordinary. Replacing perfectly good parts sometimes masks the root cause/s. These good parts go back to factory for analysis and eventually they find nothing wrong. And the factory keeps coming down on them why they replace perfectly good parts. What they cannot figure out is most of the time the overall system designs are so marginal while in spec that a combination of components in a system cause a problem. I have dealt with these problems in large systems that are hundreds of times more complicated than the electro/mechanicals in the cars.
I cannot really comment on the newer vettes since I never owned one or know anyone around me who owns one. But I know all cars have some sort of quirks, be it electronic or mechanical and that's part of living in a modern life. Five hours waiting for a tow truck is excessive but if I am buying a car in Dallas knowing there is no service center in Austin (where I live) that's my personal choice.

I am all for technology and how it betters our lives. But having heard how many microprocessors are being employed in the new Ferraris and Masers and how they communicate in their local area network inside the car, I for one would think twice before signing the big fat check. As you say, the tools available to isolate faults are very rare. And if something goes wrong the car probably sits in the service center for days/weeks before it is isolated. That is just unacceptable. It seems to me a lot of the issues computer companies have identified and worked towards reliability, and serviceability are taken for granted in the auto industry.
But on a more positive note, sounds like I should look you up when I am due for my next clutch service, $50 for complete clutch rebuild...

Edit: By the way, when Delphi went public DPH, GM owned 80% of the company.

 

call the dealer and tell them you no longer want the car

 

Don't misunderstand, I am sorry for your plight but that sounds like the FNA that I became very familiar with and do not miss.

 

Well,

It is my understanding that FNA has a wait list for all of its cars. Unless you are a repeat cutomer you can buy a used one and that is about it. Assuming truth it is no wonder the after FNA uses the bathroom it don't stink! Everyday there is a new guy who comes into money and wants a Ferrari...a sucker is born every minute. I've been a sucker 3 times...your only revenge is to do it yourself. Ferraris are just cars and simple ones at that. The hard part is rethinking pasta pete's computer electronics and figuring out "stupid ferrari tricks", the rest is just nuts and bolts.

 

I've experienced a similar thing when swapping the gearbox ECU's between 360C's.

Sometimes, the system will not work properly unless you perform a successful cycle and self learn procedure with the SD2 BEFORE trying to drive it.

 

Correct, that is pretty much a must.

 

Remind them that they are half way to a lemon law buy back.

 

They are both procedures done with the SD2 (Systema Diagnosi Due). A cycle test is a comprehensive test of all functions of a system. It is in my experience the best diagnostic test available with the SD2 and is very often overlooked. That is the very first test I would have done on your car. Self learn is a process of telling the machine to allow the system to allow overwriting of the memory and to put it through it's paces to relearn required data. Not as extensive as dumping a program and doing a reinstall, more like just erasing all your folders and starting over. When installing a new control unit or a critical component I do a self learn first then a cycle test.


Seriously though I think it is time to remind them that the clock has been ticking on the lemon law time limit for quite a while. They don't like buying cars back and most people just see the red mist so bad they don't dream of doing that and the company banks on it.

 

This is unfortunately too sloppy of service for such a great and beautiful car. They should fire the guy who sent the wrong module. Better yet, they should fire the guy/s in factory who upgraded the modules (including the QA and production control) and didn't pull all the wrong ones from the shelf or make a distinction obvious enough so an idiot who cannot read and cross-reference wouldn't make the mistake of sending the wrong module. I'd be pist!