F12 phantom braking sucks. is there a way to turn it off?

I would imagine that this motor is the same than the ABS pump... In which case I doubt there is anything you can do about it.

 

I had no idea that the cars were doing this. I’ll try this in the FF next time I’m out but I suspect it has the same system as I thought that the car had great ‘engine braking’. Little did I realise that it’s a brake ‘prep’ system.

 

Now, this makes a whole lot of sense. I've noticed that when driving the Lusso in Sport, as I lift the accelerator, there's a not-so-smooth engine braking happening. Been wondering why and guess this is it.

Thinking that with some practice, the ride can be made just as smooth as if the engine braking wasn't happening at all. Guess I'll have to for another drive today

 

Obar, I believe that is just due to the high compression engine. If smooth driving when you are in traffic etc- use manual shifting and keep the RPMs around 2,000 and you will see when you take your foot away from the throttle theres not too much compression. However, dont lug the engine up a hill with so little revs. Depending on the elevation you'll want to be at 3,000 or a touch more, then coming down the hill you can upshift and bring the RPMs down. Also use the comfort mode as this has a smoother throttle map.

As to what the OP called Phantom braking- I wonder if this is just the edgy/ grabby feel of the carbon brakes from this generation of cars. They can be a little bit grabby at the first bit of brake pedal pressure. A way to help this is to bed in the brakes- you can look up the procedure- or just take it for a track day. After doing this with my F12 and the 599 before it, the brakes were a lot more linear in their feel and application.

 

It also has a light flywheel, thus little stored rotational energy when coasting to a stop, causing it to slow quicker than other vehicles that have a heavier flywheel. Combine this with a large tire footprint and aero drag, thus the results you are seeing. I did the same thing when driving mine yesterday, observed the same result, so I had the last day to think about the reasons. You hitting the gas pedal while in neutral just added to the stored rotational energy of the flywheel, thus the better result after.

 

Guys its a racing/lap time attribute to the car. If you would have sat through a presentation from Ferrari (which I have done) during the launch of a car when they started implementing this feature, like the 458 or F12, you would have been presented their thinking. They are "pre-loading" the brakes the moment you take your foot off the accelerator under the heading of, if you are not accelerating, you must want to decelerate. The pre-loading helps with faster lap times as deceleration is just as important as acceleration when racing.

I do not like the feel during city driving and the feature should only be on when you have the car in Race or above. Its annoying as all get out when driving on city roads, especially in traffic, the car just will not coast, and your head just bobs back and forth, even worse for the passenger, my wife gets car sick in traffic.

This is where Ferrari is to focused on race and not on everyday use, a simple application on race or above would give you the best of both worlds, especially in a GT car.

Unfortunately the feature cannot be "turned off".

 

@Enzo Belair - very informative! Thanks for sharing

 

As long as its not a warranty issue, I believe @360trev can probably reprogram it to work exactly how you want it to . The man is an ECU/TCU legend.