High mileage cars are they worth the risk?

77,000 is not very high milage. Nobody cares how many miles are on a 250GTO. Only speculators & dealers care about milage. Ferraris are for driving & putting miles on. Not for holding down the floor of a garage & gathering cobwebs. The True value of a Ferrari is not in its resale price but in the enjoyment you get from owning & driving it !!!!!

Speculators are missing the whole point of owning a Ferrari.

Now that I'm done ranting

What model is it, what year ? If the car has been well maintained & the seller has documentary proof & lets you get a PPI I see no reason why not to jump on it.

I've flogged my 93 512TR around 1000s of laps, across every race track I could find, at redline and I had a mechanic tell me he has never seen such a sweet driving TR Thats my Big Red & I love her and we've had almost 50,000 great miles together

 

too low of mileage is suspect also, means lots of months just sitting, old tires, gooey fluids a hos of other bad things.

 

See http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35286

and

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42746

For discussion on that very subject.

My 328 has 77,000 miles, had 53,000 when I bought in in 2002, and it's a great car.

 

a well maintained and serviced high mileage car will generally run better than one which has sat around. i see it as a myth that exotics have poor reliabilty. many of the stories that you hear of cars breaking down are probably the result of someone who takes it for a spin once a month and then something fails. part of maintaining a car is driving it.


as long as it has been well taken care of i would say go for it, especially if every other aspect of the car is appealing to you...

ive been to car shows where some guy brags about his muscle car that has 15,000 original miles and trailers it out. the funny part is these cars sound like crap and have a tough time making it up the ramp onto the trailer.

 

i have had a 308 with 110000 miles on it and a testarossa with 60000 miles on it never gave any problem

 

I guess it depends what year/model. An F355 with that kind of mileage isn't going to be an easy car to sell. A 246GTS with that mileage could be a sensational car. (And like William said, a 250GTO is 250GTO, odometer be damned... )

The risk with high mileage cars is that you will need an engine rebuild sooner, and depending on how it was used and maintained you're kind of playing roulette. People on this board have posted about 3x8's going strong at 124,000 miles, but I've seen a couple of 328's that were rebuilt at 21,000 and 60,000 miles for whatever reasons. No car runs forever, and Italian cars don't come as close to "forever" as things like Mercedes diesels or VW bugs.

More miles = more time for accidents, so make sure it hasn't been hit.

Get an engine rebuild estimate on whatever car it is - that's going to be the single biggest expense. It won't be less than $12K-$15K for a V-8, and could be a lot more for a 12-cylinder model. Also, find out what's already been done: suspension rebuild? clutch and brake hydraulics? If everything has been professionally overhauled, it could be a very good car. But the odds are against that...

From what I've seen and read, an improperly maintained Ferrari is a money pit at any mileage. But you could put $30,000 into making a high mileage Ferrari roadworthy and you'll still have a high-mileage Ferrari that is harder to sell. So make sure the price takes that into account. And like everyone else here will probably say, a good service history and loving owners are more important than the numbers on the odometer.

J

 

Great post.

 

I have a buddy that still has his 85 308 (among a bunch of other Fcars) that he bought new. It has 140,000 miles on it. It runs great, shift sweet and looks perfect....better than alot of 'low' milage cars.

Cars were meant to be driven and enjoyed.

 

You really have to look at the condition. Too many roll back the speedos. I have been told that its real easy to reach under the dash on the 308 and disconect it. I have two really low mileage cars. A Pantera with 6000 miles and a Fiat 500 with 900 miles. There is always a reason why they are so low. The Pantera was taken apart in 1975 and then stored, and the owner of the 500 could not get it registered in the US. I also have three other cars, a TR3 Triumph, 64 GTO Convert, 69 Superbee. These all have over 100,000 miles. The main difference I see is that the cadium plating is still there on parts, and the bolts & nuts come off easily, doors shut better. The main thing on the Ferrari is service receipts.

 

I have a little over 53,000 miles on my 550. Tomorrow I am driving it to the Bay Area (900 miles round trip) and next Sunday I am off to Las Vegas (700 miles round trip).

Low mileage cars scare me. Something must be wrong with either the car or owner.

12 cylinders or bust

 

Buy an older car, expect sh*t to break!
My 308 is 21 years old, I budget a few grand a year... just in case! Small-ish price to pay for so many smiles!

 

My first 348 79k for 40k. sold it for 39k awith 86k in 1 year. ran great.

drive before you buy.

 

Your post should be..."...Low mileage cars/garage queens are they worth the risk..."

 

Is it realistic to find a good condition, well maintained 308 for under $ 30K.

 

This is a two pronged question. I'm thinking a 308 type car here...

Ferraris wear out faster than a Honda. The engine revs twice as much per mile, the trim pieces are more fragile and the leather is not the best quality - I once read they are Rolls Royce rejects whatever that means. The paint will be okay at best unless it was repainted, and even then in 5 years you may discover it was done on the cheap. High mileage cars will have lots of little things that will either be broken or about to break and the entire car will show its age in wear. But you can buy it for "little" money.

Now, this drivers car that's used lots and maintained well will be reliable assuming the PO was meticulous. The engine will be clean on the inside (no carbon deposits), not leak oil, the brakes will work, the shifting will be smooth, the electrics will all function and the hoses and rubber bits will all be in good shape either from use or having been replaced. The owner will have sorted out the glitches and you should have good luck with the car as far as the important things go (assuming it's not that the owner knows it's about to blow and is dumping it!) when you drive it home.

A garage queen OTOH will have clean carpets, nice leather, great paint and will likely blow a hose or gasket in the first 10 miles of daily use. BUT...you can sort through these problems as they pop up. After a year you will have done lots and lots of stuff and be whining how fragile it is, but there IS a light at the end of the tunnel. You will end up with a car with intact trim pieces, nice paint, fully functioning electrics and it will last a long time as long as you keep up with the routine stuff. You will have a really nice, reliable Ferrari.

So, it comes down to price. The Queen will cost more up front and more the first year in fixing stuff but in the end you'll have a great car. The high mileage well used car will cost you almost nothing the first year but will have a steady stream of little nagging things that you will or will not decide to attend to. This also gets expensive and will be a constant issue.

So it seems to me you either spend lots on a garage queen and end up with $50k sunk in a $30k car in a year, or you buy the high mileage driver and have $50k sunk in a $20k car over 5 years.

Ken

 

An important point that we all need to remember is that a 3x8 - ANY 3x8 is an old car. If you pay top dollar for a Garage Queen or bottom dollar for a beater (is there such a thing as a beater Ferrari?) you can plan on outlaying massive (relative to the price of the car) amounts of cash to properly maintain or repair what ever may go wrong if you don't/can't do the work yourself. On the other hand the cars are simple to work on - at least most repairs/maintenance that are performed with the engine/tranny in the car are. Some parts are crazy expensive but in reality nothing much that would break the bank. As long as you can maintain the cars yourself a 308 is not that expensive but if you need to take to Geno for an oil change you might want to think again - and maybe buy a Lexus instead.

 

<zips on flame suit here>

I'll stick my neck out, because I'm actively looking. In my experience: NO, or at least rarely.

The early injected 8-valve cars may get closer to your range, because they have reduced power, no rustproofing and aren't usually considered the best of the 308 series. But even there I think anything under $30K is going to need further investment...

There are a lot of decent drivers in the $30K-$40K range, and (I hope, because I want one - call me if you have one for sale) some near-showcars in the $40K-$50K range. The ones below $30K seem to be the "risky high-mileage cars" this thread was about, or cars that are noticeably beat up or allowed to slip in regard to mechanical maintenance.

I think an f-chatter just bought a 308 for $19K or so, but with the understanding that it had some cosmetic issues, was behind on servicing and would need things done. It's probably more of a driver/project car - although the price is still excellent. But by the time it's brought up to date I'd imagine $30K is how much it might end up costing.

J