is it me or are Ferraris alittle unrealiable?

It's you. Maintain them properly and you'll be fine. All MACHINES are a 'little
unreliable' - Maytag to Maybach - it's how you CARE for them that makes the difference.

Yes, you will spend more maintaining ANY Ferrari than ANY Toyota. But refer to the
previous sentence.... take good care and your costs will be manageable. F-cars are
NOT for everyone.

Jedi

 

Just wait for the new Lexus then if you want it all. It should be plenty of time to save up that $250k

 

Are they? Yes. Does it matter? No.

 

Wanted to add that this is something YOU must decide. Search the threads here
for the cars of your interest. Some get very lucky, and have very little cost to
maintain. I am into my own '86 328-GTS for about $27k in service in 1.5 years
because I was stupid and relied too heavily on a PPI that was probably biased.
Others have had their cars for YEARS and not exceeded the maintenance you'd
expect for any new luxury car.

You can learn a LOT here by using the 'search' button and putting in search
terms for your model, with key words like 'service', 'annual cost', 'major service'
etc.

Good luck - don't move too quickly. KNOW what you are getting into. All I
can add is owning an F-car is NOTHING LIKE some mass production Japanese
'exotic'

Jedi

 

Exotic cars are going to cost more to maintain than cars from a mass production automaker. Ferraris aren't Toyotas or Hondas.

Ferraris are always developed to produce a lot of power, in a package designed for performance over ease of maintenance. Ferrari doesn't advertise its cars as being economical to own or operate, so you're right, you have to have relatively deep pockets to own a Ferrari. That's why everyone else drives silver Camrys, Odysseys or Boxsters, which are all nice cars.

That said, I bought my 328 expecting a wild experience, and so far it has just been oil changes with the occasional expensive timing belt service (which I knew about when I signed up for Ferrari ownership). It's a very high maintenance, very reliable car.

Frankly, if my Ferrari didn't get my pulse going a bit, and if it didn't make me wet my pants every time I walked out to the garage, I would probably do the NSX or go back to a Porsche 993. The problem, in my case, was that every time I walked out to my garage I would see the 993 and it was basically a shiny, beautifully detailed excuse for not getting the car I really wanted.

If the Ferrari were to let me down, I have a cell phone and would call a flatbed service. Life goes on. If the engine blows up, I can afford to fix it.

With regard to a 2002 360 Modena, a well-sorted one should be a reliable car. If you just bought it, it probably has some maintenance items that need attending to. Some of them will be expensive. It's a Ferrari. Someone should have told you...

 

You just need to understand that all the replacement parts you buy are helping Ferrari to win races. You should look forward maintaining and repairing your car for this reason. It's quite noble really.

 

Yeah, what he said.

 

Maybe you need to tell us the rest of the story here .

 

wow. THAT'S a twist in the story....

 

Maybe the fact that he is selling parts off of the car is why it is not reliable.






Busted!!

 

Fish in a barrel . . .

 

I've had a pretty bad experience with my 360. However, I would venture to say, things would not be so bad if Ferraris could be serviced at a regular auto facility. The scarcity of dealerships/indys means that you may have to travel far, and almost certainly you will pay a premium, to fix any problems that arise. Also, I've found that exotics are not the most intuitive cars to work on for DIY purposes. At least in the case of my Gallardo, they don't even publish service manuals except to authorized repair facilities (which I don't happen to be).

 

From '99 to '03, I owned both an '88 328 and an '88 Celica "AllTrac Turbo" (the homologation of the WRC machine).

I added it up once: over those four overlap years, the service costs were the same on both machines ---
--- *maintained to the same standards*.

During that time, the Celica was my daily driver in winter, and the 328 was my daily driver in summer.

Admittedly, a WRC homologation machine built by the rally team instead of the factory wasn't just *any* Toyota. (Most dealerships had never heard of the ST165.)

The hard part was getting across the concept of preventative maintenance to a Toyota service department.

On performance cars, you put money into service *before* things break, and then enjoy a period of reliable use. Or you wait and then fix a lot of different things one after another after another.

Most people just drive a car until it stops ... and then replace it.

When guys at work rag on me about the amount I spend servicing cars, I ask them how much they spend on depreciation, replacing their Lexus every two years.

I had one Toyota dealership ask why I was bothering to service the Celica --- "it's old".
At the time, it was the newest car I owned (about six months newer than the 328, and almost ten years newer than the Alfa).

It's the time after the car payments stop that the service costs pay off.

Let's take that a piece at a time:

Unless there's something odd about the 360 clutch (e.g. an F1 "flappy paddle" gearbox), I'd guess there's something amiss with losing a clutch after 8k miles.

The EVO VIII was notorious for losing clutches --- because of the hydraulic damper on the clutch lines installed to protect the gearbox from CA drivers trying to sidestep the clutch. (It'd burn out the clutch rather than frag the gearbox -- you don't "smoke" four fat tires on an AWD.)

But I'm still running the original clutch on my '03 EVO, and I sold my AllTrac after 15 years and 100K miles with the original clutch.
My Alfa mechanic had strong words with me about resting my foot on the clutch pedal, and cured me of that early.


An F1 car will overheat when stationary -- it has no radiator fans.

If a street car overheats, there's something not working right -- although some mechanics will write it off as being "normal".

It took me two years to track down a recurring overheating issue on the Celica. (It had one of the unpressurized cooling systems the rallye team had tried for a couple of months.) But I found it and fixed it, and then had no more troubles.


Yes, many (young) people have a tendency to "run the numbers" on how to stretch their finances to buy a Ferrari, while forgetting about maintenance. They then don't have the funds for regular service, and wind up fearing something breaking ---- which is guaranteed to happen if you don't service it.
You have to factor service into the cost of ownership.
Realistically, you should be adding up service, depreciation, fuel costs, etc., when calculating your "cost per mile" factor.

Most people skip maintenance and simply ignore their depreciation losses.

You can ruin an ownership experience by stretching too far to get the flashiest Ferrari you can purchase. An older machine can be more enjoyable, because you have reserve funds for "things that break", because regular service will reduce the number of "on the road" surprises, and because you're not scared to park it somewhere.

For example, with the economic hit, I "ran the numbers" and figured I could pick up a 550. But it makes no sense to maintain and fuel a V12 where 90% of my commute is spent idling at traffic lights.

(My 328 does not overheat, even with that abuse ... although I've thought about adding a fan to the oil cooler for crawling in and out of the parking garage at the office.)


Italian cars --- with regular scheduled service --- can be reliable. I drove Alfa Romeos as my daily drivers for ten years .... when I had a shop that could service them properly.

I always tell people: when looking for a Ferrari, find the service shop *first*, and then go car shopping.

 

Well said. Not that i would know, but nice answer

 

how the hell did you spend $27 k in "service" !!! i would have chopped up the car for parts and bought another one if it was "that" bad.

who is charging you that much to work on the car?

i feel for ya buddy !

 

we're here with you now

 

dont confuse high maintenance with reliability - totally different. i have owned my 308 for 11 years now, and it has NEVER let me down. never left me stranded - always got me there and back with no issues. I have however spent well over $40,000 in maintenance bills and upgrades on the car.

 

Just because a 360 is involved in a rear end collision and is being parted out ... well, maybe that would impact reliability.

 

If you have a no problems car you're OK but, if you start running into problems it could easily turn into a nightmare. Deep down that's probably why these cars don't get driven much on a whole. If you do have deeps pockets for repairs, or can handle it yourself, or don't drive it much, you just blow that part of the equation off. It might be best to keep a car like an NSX around for most of the fun driving.

 

2008 612 OTO, 12,000 miles in less than one year, no problems.

I agree with those who say that high cost maintenance is not the same as unreliability.

 

Just for the record, I have 57K miles on my F355 clutch (disk), and at least 4,700 of those miles have transpired on race tracks. Its not the cars that are eating clutches, its the drivers.

Now, to be fair, I have had to have my dual-mass flywheel rebuilt (seals) 3 times.

 

all ferrari's from the 360 and up are cheaper and more reliable across the board.. They are solid cars..