Just Kidding. ;o) Been lurking for a few weeks and just wanted to thank everyone on the forum for all of the great info. Always wanted a Ferrari since I can remember (40+ years), and was planning on buying a 355 in the next few months. Now, after getting all of the facts, I'm looking for a 348. Has to be red, ts, lower miles. There are a few out there for sale, but I have a couple of buds who are wholesalers and thought I would give them a month or 2 to find me first (cheap). Anyway, just wanted to say thanks and keep up the fantastic work. Dan
Dan, Thanks for your post. Get your F car and join the brotherhood as soon as you can. Post pics when you do. Cheers!
I heard that the 348's had some very undesirable high speed handling characteristics, what turned you off of the 355 ?
Will post as soon as its in the driveway. Seems like the 355 has more maintenance issues. The extra h.p. is nice as well as the looks, but I'm planning on doing the maintenance so less issues are better. The high speed thing seems to be resolved with spacers.
Hey, spacers help handling? I thought it was just a look thing. There is another thread where someone is concerned about spacers hurting handling. Now I'm confused. What are the facts? Do spacers improve looks and improve handling? Bee Jay Edit: Hey Dandee, I don't want to hijack your thread. I think I'll start a new one.
355 was my favorite looking production car ever, but now I think I like the 599 better. Maybe in 15 years...
Hairdressers drive 355, real men do not need power steering! Just kidding, 355's are great, some issues, 348 IMHO are better, some issues there also. Do some serach's and you will get more then all of the information you need.
Well, when you do the research and get serious, ultimately it's time to man up and get the true driver's classic, the raw and sinuous 328. Welcome to FChat dandee. As you posted, 355s are expensive to maintain; 348s less so, although both cars have their fatal flaws. But they're all demanding - get whatever does it for you. If I were 348 shopping, I'd get a later one - Spider or GTS. I think Ferrari had mostly debugged the car by then, although you still get the deathwish single-belt engine design. No way around it. Newto308: The 348 bad handling is fixed with rear wheel spacers that also improve the looks of the car.
Been researching like crazy. Have gone though around 50 pages of posts so far in this section. Great info, but sometimes over my head. Speaking of 328, almost bought one in '86. If I remember correctly, that was the first year for those. Got scared away by the maintenance. Bought a vette instead (lemon). Boy was that a mistake. Few years later, the vette was worth around 1/2 of what I paid and I notice the 328's were worth a lot more than what I would have paid. Figure if this site would have been around then, I'd still have my 328.
The 25mm rear spacers improve handling while cornering; a splitter on the front lip will improve high speed stability. Later 348's had a "spacer" in the rear wheels in that there was an additional 25mm of material. So installing spacers simply gets the track width out to what the later 348's and 355's had as stock.
Even Ferrari realized the problem and moved to correct it - the twitchy high speed handling - in the Spiders, Series Speciales, Competiziones and Challenge cars with "spacers" in the rear wheels. They figured that staggering the stance more between front and rear addressed the twitch. Using grippier tires up front is a good fix too. This is why many of us 348 bros adapt 355 wheels and tires to our cars. Not only do we get 18' rubber, we get more grip and better choices for tire sets.
Yeah, I got to agree, plus u really get much more Ferrari engineering in a 355 than in a 348 or a 360. You get that incredible (and complex) engine with the 8 tbs and 5 valves per cylinder, 6-speed (or an F1 trans) and the adjustable suspension. Wow. It's more than I wanted to deal with, but u got to appreciate the design and mechanical systems in the car. Believe me, if a nice 1995 355 GTB with valve guide replacement came my way before the 348 SS, I would have got one.
What do you guys (and gals) think of this car? Leather looks a little aged for 18k miles? http://motorcars-of-georgia.ebizautos.com/detail-1990-ferrari-348-ts-1517517.html Car fax looks okay (1 failed emmisions).
