Hey Gentlemen, I have a few questions regarding a 2000 360 with 25K miles: - Last major (15 K service) was done at 17.5K miles on 9/24/07... so when is the next major due? - Have any 360s been ordered with the challenge grills installed from factory, or all challenge grills on 360s are installed afterwards? - The car has only one key and one remote. Is it possible to get another remote for the car? - The car does have the pre-cats, does this mean I have to be careful to check something as a result of that? Thanks!
360's need a belt change every 30,000 miles or every 3 years (which ever comes first. Given that you state that the last major (I assume you mean including belts) was 9/2007, then you are due in one month to get a major service with belts. As far as the key goes, you can certainly get a new key made but more importantly, you would want the fob you have to be cloned. There are several threads on cloning fobs. An alternative route would be to get an entire set of 3 new fobs from Ferrari, but that would be much more expensive. I would also verify if the car has the original security code and the radio code (assuming that the stock radio is still installed). The pre cats and headers have the problem of deteriorating and possibly getting sucked back into the engine. There are several great threads on that topic as well. Lastly, if your car does not have a challenge grill and you want one, they can be ordered from Ricambi and installed yourself. Last time I checked, they were about $1800.
I've got questions on the belt service. My understanding is at time of manufacture, my 2002 360 was advertised as needing belt service every 5 years, and that only in recent years has Ferrari said it should be 3. I'd like to know if this is correct, and why it is the case? I also recall readiing somewhere that the belt manufacturer claims the useful lifetime is really over 7 years. I doubt I'll put more than 2k miles a year on this car, 3k at most, and major service was done before I bought it. If I elect to exceed the 3 yr recommendation, what am I risking, a slow degradation of performance or something more? Is there any way to tell other than chronologically that you need a belt service?
Piper, There are many theories. (1). To get more money out of the customers for the dealers (2). Ferrari found cases of belt breaking after only 3 years (3). There are many potential components failures with these cars, a 3 years interval to check everything is a good practice. I am with the theory #3.
Timing belt failure on an interference engine typically means valves hitting pistons and very expensive engine work. Timing belt is usually replaced according to miles or year, whichever comes first. So, it is not a graceful degradation in performance but expensive engine repairs you risk. From what I have read here on F'chat, some people do 5 years instead of 3 years, but it all comes down to personal comfort/risk. There is always a non-zero probability of timing belt failure, it increases as time and miles pass... Jes
As for what happens over time, the belt wears but its operation is binary in that either it works or it doesn't (breaks). As noted above, the results of breakage are catastrophic. There is a theory circulating that the reason belts break despite low wear, low miles, is that they take a "set" from sitting around a lot (sort of like how tires can get flat spots from sitting extended periods), so when you start and run it after a long hiatus, the belt snaps or slips. Anyway, I would guess that Ferrari had a reason other than a pure greedy desire to increase revenue from service visits, such as the reasons outlined by others above.
