Misery Loves Company: Valve Guide issues hit the V12s

Well, not much good news here, but thought my 355 friends would be interested in some recent developments with the 456/550 crowd. Turns out, a couple of 456s with 20k-ish miles on them have developed the infamous worn valve guide problem, including mine. Diagnosis was the same as the 355 issue: worn bronze valve guides leading to profuse oil burning and smoke. My car has been in the shop for nearly 3 months; roughly a $11k repair to replace with the sintered steel guides.

A quick question if I may: given the prominence of this issue with the early 355s, did Ferrari ever fess-up and provide compensation for out-of-warranty cars? I couldn't find anything definitive in searching this forum.

At present, I'm stuck with the repair bill (even though my 2000 456M is still under the emission warranty). I'd be thrilled if someone could direct me to an appropriate resource for possible further discussions with the manufacturer.

Thanks so much! See my prior posts for many pictures and other details of this problem on the V12s.

 

Well it is very unfortunate that you having this problem .

If f-car owners "drove" their cars more, these problems would have to be fixed under warranty. Then the factory may see the magnitude of the "problem". When it finally starts to cost them some money they may feel compelled to address the issue.

I am certain one reason they put "unlimited" mile warranties within a short time period, is the widely known fact that these cars don't see much use.

So as long as most owners are content and even proud that their f-car's rarely get driven, the factory has nothing to fix.....

 

I was told by a dealer that many early 355 cars had the valve guides replaced at Ferrari's expense, but that you would be hard pressed to find records. This could be heresay, but the point is that the factory was/is well aware of the problem and pitched in for the replacement. I would push the issue with FNA to start, then escalate it as necessary. Maybe you can get a contribution of some amount.

I was also told that the factory stopped using bronze guides after the 355 debacle (circa 1998) - that appears to be untrue. I am starting to believe the rather cynical signature line of rifledriver.

 

A statement based on experience that a very dear price was paid for, I can assure you.

 

Rifle, have you seen any examples of this 12-cyl guide issue first hand?

 

Yesterday.

Did a PPI on a 95 with 37k miles. Leak down from 5-52%. I do not think I will ever see the inside of that motor though. I have another, a 2002 with one cylinder that is pretty bad and we went as far as checking valve clearance to be sure it is just not a tight valve but the decision to fix it has not been made yet. It has 19k miles.

Tom Bakowski had one at the same time. I think that one got fixed by him.

I know of one local 550 that got a valve job but I never count cars that are done at shops I know either have issues with diagnosis skills or are overly aggressive in sales. Most of the huge bills and horror stories we hear of have more to do with that than real problems so I am very selective what data I add to my data base.

 

I frankly think this valve guide situation is a pandemic problem in the mid to late 90's with Ferrari. When I bought my 512M it had the guides replaced at 16K miles.

 

More than late 90s. Present evidence is *all* of the 456s are impacted, up to 2003. What I find amazing is that even after the problem was known (and corrected) on the 355s, Ferrari continued to use bronze guides on the V12s!

One possible reason that we're only now starting to see more problems is the relatively understressed V12s require a greater combination of age and mileage to begin to manifest the valve guide issue.

Seriously, what was Ferrari thinking putting bronze guides in the later V12s when they were fixing this problem with sintered guides in the V8s?

 

Corporate philosophy..."If no one is complaining it isn't a problem".

 

My point exactly! F-cars are years out of warranty by the time these cars get enough miles for these types of problems to surface. By then it the problem is the owners responsibility. As long as it doesn't cost them anything it is not a problem.

 

All the more reason to support the 348! Okay, the later 355's and V-8 models are okay too, I guess.