Problems with Cali T gearbox?

Yikes, that stinks. First I can recall having heard of on F-Chat on a 2015 or a T. Hope it turns out to be an innocuous sensor issue like the earlier NA Calis.
T

 

Henry, sorry to learn about this - can you elaborate a bit more? If the light had no come on, was the car doing anything that would have alerted you to a problem?

What were you doing with the car when the warning light came up? Can you relate the warning light to something that happened prior?

Thanks.

 

Thanks. Was it hot, humid at the time? And were you in heavy traffic? Well, at least the car behaved normal otherwise, the DCT wasn't missing gears so that's good, and the lights went off and then came back on. Hopefully, it's just software(?), battery or a sensor issue.

 

Would be interesting to know the miles on the vehicle as well.

 

Yes, thank god it's still under warranty! As for the leather lifting on the dashboard, I suspect it's the glue losing its grip. It shouldn't be too difficult to have an upholsterer re-glue it.

If you don't already have the factory-installed heat-insulated windshield glass what you can do is to wrap the glass with a heat and UV filtering film and always place a sunshield under the windshield when you park. I posted some photos of mine some weeks ago. I also try to park my car out of the sun when it is outside and then garage it when I get home. My leather is in good shape and shows no signs of lifting.

 

I’m sure interested in what they find the issue to be with the transmission, please keep us posted.

 

Thanks Henry, sure hope this is just a hiccup and is resolved quickly.

 

Big job,sub frame removal. Had the same with my 2011 Cali, also under guarantee otherwise you are not happy.

 

Had something similar with mine. The Main dealer had my car for 3 months!!

 

It looks like (yet another instance of) faulty sensors, rather than actual mechanical issues. What a waste of expensive labour to get to these items! One should not have to expend so much effort to get at the gearbox and the sensors.

One suggestion I have is that owners watch the temperature gauges especially when moving slowly and when parking the car. I suspect the primary cause of sensor failures, aside from manufacturing defect, is heat-related. Heat accelerates attrition and excessive heat will cause most materials to fail earlier in their life cycle. Components are designed to achieve certain life cycles only when operated within certain temperature ranges. Temperatures can get out of hand if the cooling system is compromised.

For these reasons I would not use these cars for commuting in heavy traffic or lots of slow driving in hot weather. A Ferrari simply does not belong in a traffic jam and would not have been designed to favour that slow driving. All high performance machines are designed to favour their ideal performance environments. In the case of Ferraris, that means traveling at relatively high dynamic velocities, which naturally delivers good ventilation and cooling. If you want equipment designed like that to last longer, you need to simulate those operating conditions.

Cars that get hot after being used are compromised when parked without adequate opportunity to cool off.

I always try to cool down my car after a spirited drive - I will drive it casually towards the end of my drive, usually around my neighbourhood at low engine RPM and watch the coolant temperature gauges drop in temperature until a stable "lower temperature" is reached. This varies depending on how hot the ambient temperatures are. I then pop the hood after I park my car. The DCT is at the rear but its radiator is in the front. These are just little things meant to reduce heat stress to the car's components. However, I did used to own a BMW where these practices were actually critical to the longevity of its cooling system and engines! They (along with Mercs) were notorious for heat stress destroying up their plastic radiators, hoses...etc, at the worst moments.

 

^ Interesting. At this time of the year, I try to go out for a drive before the sun is too high in the sky. Since it is a fun car, and not a DD, I am not often in stop & go traffic. This past week was a very rare instance of that for me while driving the Cali.

4th - like you, I like to do a "cool down" lap of the neighborhood after a drive, and before parking the Cali. Do you pop the hood to accelerate cooling? I'd guess that might help cool engine faster but if the DCT is @ the rear, it might not help with cooling that area.

T

 

The DCT is in the rear. Although there is a DCT fluid radiator at the front of the car, once the car is turned off, does the pumping of fluid to the radiator still cycle? My guess is that it does not. So I doubt opening the lid will do much except for lower the local temperature at the front of the car. Usually to lower temperature, they will do a cool down lap where the car is sun at low rpms and the guages show a drop in oil and fluid temps. Perhaps in the Cali, one can simply let the car idel with the hood popped upen. The DCT fan and the pumping will occur and cool the fluid. Since there would be no significant load and no gear changing, the bos would not be generating much internal heat.

4th gear is convinced that the DCT gets hotter when in stop and go traffic. What about when the car is driven at high speed. Accelerating hard with high RPMs, may produce much more heat.

I think that you can actually measure the DCT fluid temperature, if it hooked up to the Ferrari diagnostic computer.

It would be interesting to know if any Ferrari technician has done real time DCT fluid temperature measurements and correlated them to different driving conditions such as idling vs high speed high rpm driving.

 

They did add a secondary rear heat exchanger to the mid 2012 californias and that carried thru the Cali 30 and I think it’s still present on the t as well. I believe all 458 were fitted with the rear secondary heat exchanger.
But any cooling fans would not operate when car is off and wouldn’t gain anything as you said from opening the hood for the DCT. A cool down lap would probably help more for cars with the rear heat exchanger, and your idea about running with the hood open could also help.


While I’m not convinced that stop and go driving is the main culprit ( no offense 4th gear) since hard driving would induce more heat ( hard fast shifts, higher rpm creating friction) but I’m certainly convinced heat is the underlying cause since the secondary exchanger appears to have lessened DCT issues. I would have thought since these have been I’m production for 9 years and are installing a gen 3 DCT in the portofino (assume the gen 2 started with the t model line) that these sensors would be more up to the task.

I would bet that at some point there has been a computer hooked up to monitor these conditions but it’s probably all internal Ferrari/Getrag data. I have read that the sensors are an updated unit now but still carry the same part number and I have no idea if the same sensors are used in all the generations of DCT. It is also interesting to note that in this case it wasn’t a shaft speed sensor, the usual culprit in DCT failure, but pressure sensors. I’m kinda hoping that while unfortunate for the op this is a one off issue and we don’t start seeing a bunch of California t failures in the near future.

These cars are incredible driving machines and it’s not good for the model nor the brand to suffer from these failures. As a direct result of the issues I have read about in countless threads I have eliminated the possible purchase of any California older then the 30 and I will more then likely purchase the new power warranty when I do for peace of mind as replacement even if rebuilt isn’t cheap. Most of this is due to all of the sensors and wireing being totally incased inside the gearbox and the amount of labor to remove and open the gearbox. (A poor design choice in my opinion, and a bad choice to keep that way after the first rash of sensor failures)

Op, are they replacing the gearbox under warranty or rebuilding? What ever the case I hope you are up and running soon!

 

I like to keep the engine on the boil when I drive my car so if I do get stuck at a light or behind traffic, the engine's extra hot, radiator gauge needle tends to point upwards and the fan has to kick in. It's only when I get going again at a reasonable pace that everything settles back down. The fan does not run while I am on the move. The car relies on getting cooled when it is moving and this is obviously why the DCT radiator is also placed in the front connected by very long hoses.

I pop the hood not because of the DCT although it does help cool off the DCT coolant faster. I do it to avoid the hot engine cooking all the plastic and rubber parts without the benefit of air circulation that they would have when the car is under way. The parts of any car that suffers most from aging are made of plastic and rubber. Why cook these parts when I'm not even enjoying the car?

Heat is the major culprit in the degradation of all materials, including metals. In an operating engine, coolant (lubricant) is used to keep working surfaces within satisfactory temperature range. When the coolant stops circulating you want to find another way to accelerate the cooling. Metals, plastics and rubbers will all fatigue and eventually fail when optimal operating temperatures are repeatedly exceeded. Some cars also get sticky buttons or peeling leather.

I do what I can to minimize my car's exposure to excessive temperatures.

 

I don’t disagree that popping the hood doesn’t help. Actually it makes a lot of sense and can’t be a “bad” idea. Where I respectfully disagree is the stop and go idea of DCT failures, since there are a good portion of the cars that have had failures and have had minimal (claimed) stop and go driving. But we are on the same page reguarding heat failure with the DCT, I also am certain we both would like to see improved design of at least the sensors involved. I hope that in their case it’s an isolated incident as this is the first I’ve ever heard of an issue on a Cali T DCT.

 

Ive wondered how a longer path from the DCT to the cooling radiator affects the system. After some reflection, I believe it has to do with the larger volume of fluid in the system, in other word, if all other things are equal, a system with long pipe runs has greater fluid volume and so is not as efficient when it comes to cooling. There may also be an issue of pipe diameter and length as a restriction on flow.

Better cooling is the solution