Josh from ECS posted on another forum that all 355's will need a $20-25,000 service at least once in their life if not twice. Dave rocks posted that a car would have to have been severely neglected or abused to need that much money put into it at a engine out service. Josh wouldnt supply an invoice of what was needed addressed that cost $25k during an engine out service. Short of needing the heads needing rebuilt I have no idea what to spend 25k on when the engine is out of the car and removal and replacement is included. Spring is almost here and going over my car to get it ready. I just had the Hyper-flows rebuilt so I had the exhaust apart where I could look everything over. To me everything looks as it should, with this in mind I wonder if I missed anything? Over the last 3 years little has been done to my car other than the above mentioned, fluid changes and a clutch. I really want to keep up on everything so I think I will do a brake and coolant flush. I know if I ever sell this car people will want to see service records to know everything is up to date but with my car over the last three years other than tires and what I mentioned really very little has been done to it. My car runs great doesnt smoke drip oil coolant or anything else. I looked it over CV boots are fine motor mounts are fine....other than I could detail the engine its clean and I drive the car often so I feel there is no need to polish spark pug wires. Dash is great no sticky parts checked headers when cats were off seem fine. No codes weird smells. I put Sta-bil in it before I parked it for the winter in a climate controlled garage (constant 50 degrees) I start it up every couple of weeks warm it up and jack it up and spin the tires. I need to adjust the Ebrake and replace the rear diffusers before I drive it this spring but thats it... This is my first Ferrari and I want to keep up on everything but I have no idea what else to do. If you handed me a check for 5k and said go take care of what it needs I would have to hand it back because I cant think of a thing. My car looks great except some slight wear on the seat bolster and a couple of rock chips on the front. I may address the seat now but its not a show car so I really could care less. What else really needs to be done to keep it from being a neglected car? It will need a major next year or two but other than replacing stuff thats not broken I cant see where I would need to spend 25K. So again am I missing something or things?
Nah I'm so sick of hearing about maintinence costs here , if you do some work yourself there is never a need for a 25k service. Only an engine tear down at a shop would get that high. I buy my f355s 40k and under and drive them without a worry in the world. Enjoy your car, embrace the rock chips and bolster wear and enjoy your f355!
IMO, the big horror stories of 20-25k service work.. has to do with unsorted issues such as Valve guides, headers that caused collateral damage.. requiring complete rebuilds of the motor.. any buyer can easily be scared away from the 355 for these reasons.. despite all the modern exotics out there, which 99% are not in my reach.. the 355 was still always my all time favorate car.. and I was able to buy one last year.. the car I bought was not in pristine condition.. it needed some work..and will need a major within a year.. but it had good past work done to it such as the valve guides. and past a good compression test.. albiet only after I bought it.. so hopefully the "big" work is behind me.. all this to say.. I think more often then not... a 355 can be maintained "fairly" cost effectively... its still a Ferrari.. even the youngest cars are 16years old now.. so things will likely fail here and there.. huge major repairs is not impossible.. it does and can happen.. but to say all 355's will come across a huge repair at least 1-2 times in its life time I dont think is accurate. at this point in its life cycle.. all the better to future buyers, who can pick/research a car, that has had some or most things sorted, so that they dont face it during ownership.. but regular maintainance such as oil, fluids etc.. and doing the major every 5 years give or take.. most 355s should be more or less trouble free.. yes you may have a header fail, a cat melt, dead cat ecu's, failed water pump etc etc.. but those are repaired as you go.. or replaced in advance as preventative measures.. but if things such as the above are delt with, I think the horror 20-25k jobs can be avoided.. could I find reasons to spend 20k on my car right now.. sure I could.. but its not because the engine has failed..
Just before its major, my car had failures in headers, cats, engine mounts, CV boots and both radiator fans. Headers and good sport cats are pretty expensive, so those items added $5k on top of my major service. My car has the newer valve guides, and my cam timing was dead on when checked for the belt change. I also had both radiator fans fail, so the car would overheat if I'm driving too slow. All temperature sensors and most of the coolant hoses were preemptively replaced. All spark plug wires preemptively replaced. Not being a silver spoon baby, all that stuff hurt a lot, but this job probably wouldn't have been $20k even at a dealer. Pretty sure a $25k job involves a catastrophic failure in the heads.
"Major Service" What does it include? $20-25k "services" do happen. They are typically $8-10k major belt services plus new OEM headers, new OEM cats, and all the extras that arent in a standard service like motor mounts, o2 sensors, thermocouples, thermocouple ecu's, plug wires, coolant hoses, ect, ect, ect... the list can just keep going and going. Easily into the $20k plus range in that scenario.
Just completed my 5 year major and with no issues but still spent 25K. Although 12K was spent on new Tubi manifolds, SRI coolant hoses and rear tires. So for six years of owning my 99 355 I have averaged 6k a year to maintain my car. I expect this average to drop precipitously going forward but having said that, I have no regrets!
Sounds like you spent that $6k/year to enjoy and improve your 355, not simply maintain it. I think the OP is looking to separate the costs for required/necessary maintenance (fluids, belts, tires) from upgrades (performance exhausts, headers, etc.).
I am...just after reading that post by ECS I'm walking around my car wondering WTF am I missing.... my airbag light is on but I'm not driving it 400 miles round trip to a Ferrari dealer to have it reset. (if I'm going to put 400 miles on it I'm going to do it in the twisties up north). I am sure if you are trying to keep your car in concours condition I can see it being a very expensive endeavor... I have just over 41k on my car and would love to see it at about 50k by end of summer. With that said I crawl around it and I cant see a reason to spend any money on it right now. I do want to make sure its kept up but honestly I wouldnt know what to do...Sure i could repaint the valve covers and some other cosmetic stuff but that wouldnt make the driving experience any better... Aldo you have done some really cool stuff to your car but if you subtract the tires and aftermarket upgrades that puts your belt change in the normal range of about 10k...I wouldnt consider the rest maint
f you keep up on maintenance items and don't let things linger until the major, you'll never get a $25K bill (unless as said before... you end up needing an engine rebuild or something). Keep your F355 happy and she'll keep you happy.
Can you sink $25k in maintaining an F355 in one trip, sure easily! 1. You probably not do your own work. 2. You would most likely have to break something expensive. 3. You would most likely to neglect regular maintenance. 4. You would most likely to drive without mechanical empathy. 5. You would most likely ignore problems until the car is disabled. Given those 5 conditions, sure, you can spend a boat load of money. Even with my prop shaft failure and needing to eventually rebuild the heads (which will happen probably when I return to the mainland as opposed to now), I still won't spend $25k, not even close to that number. Someone is math challenged or not making an effort to save money... and if you have $25k to spend on one service, then you aren't worried about it anyway. Personally, I am not going to drop $25k on a single servicing of a $47k car, which is why I do my own work. My car, for me, is a hobby toy... I am not worried about showroom perfection in every detail (mine is a driver, not a show car) and only having mechanics blessed by Ferrari working on it. If I were preserving/collecting it, that might be different but that's not my cup of tea...
Four years with mine so far. Did the headers myself(had a 430 and it needed too). Bought some new plug wires. One spark plug went bad. A coolant hose looked tired that I replaced at NAPA for $5. Oh, there was four oil changes I did Myself for about $100 each.
The internet is a great thing. It records issues for a lifetime. $25,000 repairs were possible and many have been documented here and elsewhere. Exhaust failures can be expensive in headers and engine problems as a result. However, most headers are now swapped out. If not, Fabspeed and others have some options that are more robust and cheaper than OEM. Valve guide issues exist. But by now most, not all, but most have been corrected. Careful analysis prior to purchase will allow you to avoid that expense. The F1 pump failure was a mess back in 2000 - 2001. Before I bought it, my car sat for 4 years because the pump failed. The repair estimate at the dealer included a new actuator unit that contained the pump. The part was $20,000. Now we have a Hill engineering kit that swaps in a 360 pump for $1500. Can you drop a valve and have an $25,000 repair? Sure. But any exotic has that fun surprise as a possibility. Most 5 year service expenses will set you back $6,000 + while I am in there stuff. Mine is in now and I am doing a lot of extra curricular work and will not see $10k.
All that means is that one of the previous owners is the one who dropped $20k on a single visit to the shop I'm in total agreement with ECS on this one.. maybe his number is a bit on the high side, but to say that most 355s will require several services in the $15k+ range is right in line with my own experience and of the other cars at the shop I frequented, many of which had $25-45k issues. If you haven't had that experience, consider yourself very lucky and keep on keepin' on.
Do 348s suffer from this failed header and bad valve guide problem? Just curious--I haven't heard anything from what I'm reading and since they are SO different in this regard I was wondering if this was a 355 only problem.....
Haha, but there are the old exhaust ecus, light control and magic mice. Replace the ecus with 355 new green silicon. One and done, and the light control too.
after my last drive last year I parked it, plugged up the Ctek and that's it. haven't started it since. this was mid Nov. so that's almost 3 1/2months now. I've been storing summer cars for 8 years and have never started them unless I could pull it out and go for a first drive. never had an issue, I've done it this way as I understood was not good to start car and let sit if would not be driven and just shut off again.
I'm sure this will offend some but a $25k maintenance bill is most likely the result of the complete and utter ignorance of the owner and not anything to do with the car. If you don't know enough about your car to be taken for that much then they will take you for as much as they can. Period.
I know people do but i never have on any of my cars. but come spring it's the first thing I do. take it for a drive to make sure all is ok and then schedule oil change. I'm not a DIY guy. if I was maybe I would do the oil before storage. my 355 is the first fcar I've owned, so I inquired about this with my mechanic and he said no problem to store it and do oil in spring.
The "problem" is people that buy a car this age and can't turn a wrench. The repair predators love them. They fall victim to the repair scam like it goes with the territory. It doesn't. its total BS.
not sure what you're getting at? that because I'm not a DIY owner that I'm going to get scammed by my mechanic.? I may not be a DIY guy but doesn't mean I don't know about cars. maybe I just don't like to get my hands dirty. I'm not worried about being scammed. A major factor in the purchase of my car was to have an Fcar mechanic I could trust.
Nothing wrong with that !!! I made my living from car fanatics and 90% of them were the greatest folks to deal with and made my work fun
