Well wallet is lighter. My 2001, 550 has approx 7K miles on it and I started hearing a thump, rear right side. I took it in to the F dealer and was told it was the rear shocks. Well ok, got them done, noise still there. So I was told it was the shocks and the bushings for the rear shocks. No not quite, has to the rear spring retaining clips as well. So when all is said and done the tab on this adventure was $ 5,800 dollars. Shocks, $2,600, bushings, $400, Clips $1,250 and the rest labor. I was told by the F dealer that driving the car or not this is normal wear and tear. This is my first major expense on the car, it is done and I have her back but rather steep!! I am not sure why I am posting except that this was a touch expensive for the mileage? alican
Okay, reread your post....Canadian dollars, so not quite as bad, but still expensive! I bought my 355 with 27.5k miles, and by this time it had over the previous years had 3 shocks and two acuators replaced...charges were slightly less, but not by much. Just remember for the future...we have a guy on F-chat that rebuilds the shocks for less than $250 usd. http://www.deltavee.net/ Ask for Rob.
Your car was shipped from Italy and then stuck on a truck and delivered to Vancouver (or somewhere nearby). Although the wheels never turned the shocks did the full 6,000 miles for the car was jounced around in the ship and on the transporter. In other words your suspension has about 13,000 miles on it, not 7,000. Some bits on a Ferrari dont last that long, particularly with the Vancouver road surfaces. Have you seen Drummont Drive? Good luck, and above all else avoid the pot holes and the tar strips - drive on the side walk!
I have over 50k kilometres on my 355. It's done everything (inc tracks) and been everywhere (glass smooth motorway and bumpy country lanes with cobbles). Never had a problem with any suspension components. However, I would not be surprised if the bushings went from time to time (which, so far, they haven't). I would recommend taking your Fcar to a specialist for an appraisal - not just an authorised dealer. In the UK, the authorised boys are somewhat keen to 'over do' a job - not only that, some of them even charge (at a rate of over £100/hr) just to diagnose the problem in the first place!!!
Got something not to different here : Car has 20K miles So far I have changed one rear shoch + actuator and I have receipt from the prvevious owner for a front actuator and shock. That's 50% new so far. Bad news are : cost is about 1500 GBP for a new set (incl act.) and the suspension warning light just came back on. Frankly I do not think this is very normal : the weakness is the link between the shock and the actuator with is made out of very cheap plastic gear. Would be fantastic if someone could actually rebuild that part. My understanding is that the guys wiukd rebuilds shocks does not rebuild / improve that bit but the body of the shock.
Sounds crazy even for a ferrari. Shocks are simple pieces that rarely fail, maybe it's a small part that can be repair. Dealers don't repair anything anymore, they do wholesale replacement.
I have had problems with suspension light too. According to the dealer front right actuator needed replacement. Since it needed replacement anyway, I decided to try and fix it first. It turned out to be a faulty connector which needed soldering one of the connector pins.
Read the manual on the suspension system for any newer Ferrari (355,456,550 and on....) The Bilstein system and the sensors seems a bit more complicated than my BMW. But I would agree that the system is more fragile than it should be, especially for a German designed and made one at that.
Actually I would disagree. The dynamics of the way the suspension compresses and rebounds on a road, versus while riding while fixed in a truck are very different. Any bump will be very evenly and very mildly induced while riding in a truck. Very different than driving down a road. And it still doesn't explain the poor quality of the Bilstein/Ferrari shock components. My BMW 540 M-Sport likely took a similar route from Europe to Coquitlam, BC (Brian Jessel BMW), and now has over 50,000 miles on it (crappy Vancouver and Seattle roads too). All suspension components work perfectly.
Why don't you guys just get the shocks rebuilt? It's alot cheaper... and many on here have had success.
That is correct, sir. Having made dozens of trips to Ontario, CA UPS Testing Facility & dealing with simulators, drop tests & more (wine shipping), I can assure anyone things do get bounced around on the simulator alone.
There's certainly some bouncing and g's added due to the transport, but the truck's suspension takes a large fraction of that. The 6000 transport miles are much easier than road miles. Still seems like an early failure with respect to total miles.
I would have to disagree with this also, when a car is shipped it is tied/pulled down enough to keep it from moving so the suspension is not active.
To everyone who said I was wrong: Thanks for being so polite about it, really, that's one of the reasons I like this board. You all have good points, but back in the day, when one was transporting a racing car, the first thing one did was open the valving on the bump and rebound settings of the shocks. If it was more than a local trip, say from Northants to Monza, old or dummy shocks were installed. If you realize that the real name for a shock absorber is an oscillation damper then it is obvious the less oscillations the suspension goes through then the less energy the component will have to absorb and the longer it will last. (Please dont quote high school physics about energy never being destroyed - you know what I mean.) With all that said, yes, some cars have the wishbones tied down during shipping, some just have the wheels strapped, and yes again, life on a truck is softer than dealing with the potholes directly. With under body trays and pressure to give the customer a product without markings it is probably safer to tied up a tire then run a belt over an alloy suspension component, a condition that increases the amount of work the suspension does during shipping, but the truth of the matter is that I dont know how new Ferraris are held down. At the end of the day there are only two facts that do matter: 1) Parts of the suspension failed, and 2) at that milage they should not have, be it either 7,000 or 13,000. But they did. So, ignoring my shipping theory, or a bunch of bum components, why did these bits break? Anyone?
The shocks are Bilsteins, right? Just send them back to Bilstein for a rebuild. Most aftermarket guys who provide rebuild services are doing just that, they play middle man and send them back to the company to perform the actual service. (I'm not saying they all do that, but most I know of.) I just rebuilt my entire suspension on my 911, including my 22 year old shocks. I sent the shocks back to Bilstein for revalving with custom settings to match my new torsion bars. I'm sure they can do the same for Ferrari shocks. By far the cheapest alternative.
Because they are crap...just like the exhaust manifolds on my 355, and the valve guides, etc. These Bilstein shocks and shock actuators are a known weak area on the 355. Less so on the 456 and 550/575 though. Still love my Ferrari anyway.... Dave...going back to the Kool Aid pitcher....
Hey Kram, I have wondered the samething about high quality companies that seem to make parts that last a long time on some cars but not on others. Bilstein and Bocsh come to mind. I have had Bilsteins(aftermarket) on my BMWs that seem to last forever and bosch parts that never ware out 150,000+ miles. I have replaced Bosch sensors on my Ferraris over the years but never on my BMWs. I have not had the shock problem yet but have heard some comment on this board about it. My conclusion to this is manufactures(bosch) must have varing differences of quality that a customer(Ferrari) can specify. Regards, Vern
Vern, My thought is that Ferrari can ask for the product to be modified/customised to the point that it compromises the quality of the end product, over just taking it the way it is, "off the shelf". For example, the crappy Ansa exhaust manifolds. Ferrari likely had some target weight in mind, and Ansa had to use thin enough material to meet the spec weight. Or, I may be just making excuses for Ferrari. Dave...back to the Kool aid.... burp!
I've been thinking the same. I put it down to the Italian car rejecting the foreign (German) components.
I haven't seen anybody mention the suspension geomerty of the car having an effect on the longevity of the shocks, or that fact wheel and tire size and profile also have a direct impact on the abiltiy of the shock to do its job effciently and with the least amount of stress and wear on the shock itself. Maybe I'm just pissing up a rope...
Dave, I think your being to kind on the manifold weight issue, asumming you are refering to the 355. They are just being cheap even more so on not owning up to it and fixing the problem. As much as I love Ferraris (and I really do) this little tidbit of crap pissess me off. Sorry for the rant.
Hey wouldn't it be terrible if you discovered the thumping noise was just something loose in the trunk?
