Lol! Some of this is getting pretty ridiculous. But I am sick to death of every time someone comes on here and says "I'm thinking of buying a 355" the same old usual suspects who don't own and never have owned a 355 take it upon themselves to scare the crap out of the prospective purchaser and try to steer them towards a 348 or 360 instead. The rules of 355 ownership are basically the same as any other car. Buy the best one you can possibly afford. Service history and condition are everything. Mileage is not. Avoid cars that have been maintained "questionably". If you buy a cheap, poorly maintained POS you get what you deserve. It is NOT the cars fault. If you do that and ignore 90% of the rubbish on this forum, you'll be fine. And every time you park your car and walk away you'll look over your shoulder and think "Thank God I listened to my heart and bought a 355"
Rules of ownership for all f cars. Buy it,drive it, enjoy it and stop fukk#% moaning. I'm telling you lot I'm probably one of the poorest 355 owners on here!! Do I complain? NO! WHY? Coz I feel blessed at the fact I own one. I'm Glad I'm poor because u. Rich lot do a helluva lot of whining!
There is actually only one problem uniuque to the F355. That is valve guides which itself is much over blown. The header cracking problem is not unique to the 355. Nor are the sticky parts. And as for the engine out major, do not the 348 and Mondial T also require engine out? The 348 has its unique problem too in the timing drive gear bearings which can lead to a belt failure and take out the top end altogether. But that doesn't get a lot of air time. I guess maybe it's time to start telling optential 348 buyers that they better check the service records and make sure those bearing have been replaced or they are buying a time bomb. All this crap is so over blown as to make Ferrari ownership seem only for the insane. Why would anyone by a Ferrari when they can buy a Honda.
What Steve355F1, SteveHarkness, and JohnK posted pretty much sums it up. Well stated guys. Sound advice.
Good for you. I have a mega rich friend, who doesn't get it either. He's always whining about little things in his amazing collection LOL
Not true. It is not a problem on the 348. It is a wear item you check during your belt service. If you neglect stuff bad things happen. And....before you cast stones... JUST an FYI the 355 has two of those same part number bearings. Look up part number 171177
It's not the bearings, it's the pulley fence issue unique to the 348. 348 also has a potential gearbox issue not present on the 355. They all have their issues, anybody claiming otherwise or singling out a specific model has an agenda.
Not true. The pully fence has no bearing. It takes no pressure. It just sits there. If the bearing runout increases that allows the angles to change putting pressure of the belt onto the fence and then failure. The pully is not the issue at all. The gearbox is not an issue. I'm the one who came up with the 348 gearbox fix and taught guys like Ernie how to fix them. With his help everyone knows what to do and 25 years later it is really hard to find a box that has not been improved. Agendas? I'm not the one who mentioned the 348. It was used by others incorrectly as "see other models have problems too." Well all models do have problems with a varying degree of fatality. However, the issues you and the other poster mentioned are not fatal flaws or expensive in a 348. That timing bearing is about the cheapest part in the car replaced during a major. The gearbox costs zero in parts also easy to do during a major. The 348 braintrust working together took the 348 branded by Luca D as the worst Ferrari ever and turned it into a rock solid performer darn close to the reliability level of a 328 or 550 with zero help from Ferrari.
171177 is the ball bearing. 144713 is the offending roller bearing. But I do stand corrected as at least some 355s used the roller, perhaps all. Not sure when the switch was made. At Ricambi 144713 is still listed as the 348 part, but superseded. 171177 is listed as the 355 part.
I have read all of that thread. Its turned out to be quite an anti 355 thread so far But, not to worry if you are not man enough to run a 355 or dont have the means or skill sets, "jog on" as we say in the UK You can watch thouse of us that do an can enjoy ours from a far
I don't think the title of the thread did any help either. How about I can't sell my car for what I think its worth.
Do not concern yourself. If you are in the UK, you are in the 95% of the world which doesn't apply to either the title of this thread or the majority content of that thread.
The negativity does not stop, some people DO have an agenda to disparage the 355 for some F';ing reason. I have a perfectly running 355 for the last 4 years. Accept the facts, move on, stop the BS.
So here's the narrative in a nutshell: 1) The 348 started out as a POS but has since been anointed withe BillyBob oil and has now achieved saint hood. 2) The 355 is claimed to be essentially the same car as the 348 according to some(most) people 3) The 355 started out with some problems, all have known fixes, just like the 348, but the 355 has not been anointed with BillyBob oil and so will ever suffer in hell. (According to some people who can not see past their prejudices)
Tell those that lost an engine or transmission that those are non-issues, and more than a few have. The 355 issues all have fixes as well. If you're saying that a 355 is more expensive to proactively fix than a 348, well maybe that's your only argument, but if the various issues crop up on either car and cause a failure, both will be just as bad if not worse for the 348 (those transmissions aren't cheap).
