Sigh.....Gearbox light on, lost reverse and even # gears

I'm not sure how "the authorized dealer's service advisor" came to that conclusion about the wear rate of Ferraris. My car still drives like brand new (actually better than brand new) and still looks brand new after 5 years.

While Porsches are generally reliable and are stellar performers, they are not without problems. Look at what happened with the GT3 engine recalls, just 2 years ago. What about the catastrophic IMS bearing issues, many examples of which are likely still out there, waiting to wreak havoc?

I find cherry-picking comparisons not helpful at all because Ferrari and Porsche are so different as brands and product offerings. You can say bad things about them from a particular perspective while completely ignoring the fantastic value they represent in other regards. At any rate they are not really direct competitors and their owners can have those cars side-by-side in their garages without wondering if they have too many of the same thing.

My main beefs about Porsche are their deadly dull interiors and the similarity in appearance between their cars - talk about wear miles! While Porsche's superb technology cannot be trivialized, I think Ferrari does a much better job at designing exteriors and interiors as well as different driving experiences. Their front-mid-engine V8 vs. mid-engine V8 vs. front-mid-engine V12 cars manage to come across differently while still managing to convey a common "bloodline".

Finally, I have a good piece of advice about "wear miles" - DO NOT USE THESE CARS AS DAILY-DRIVERS.

If you drive them everyday, regardless of whether it's a Ferrari or a Porsche, they will end up feeling everyday and will pick up all the unpleasant aspects of everyday life.

I ask you, when you pick a magical location for vacation, do you pick a location that looks and feels exactly like what you experience everyday???? Then why the heck would you want to drive your dream car everyday? Save it for the occasions when you are not bothered by your work schedule, the horrible commute traffic, the boring route you have to take to get to work. Make your outings an occasion - do that and I guarantee you, you won't have issues with "wear miles".

 

"As is" doesn not forfeit waranty. At least in Quebec law.

 

Josh - I am in Houston too. You can try Andy at Ferrari of Houston - he will give you an honest estimate. Aftermarket, SC Repairs behind nxcess on 59/on star ln is pretty good. I always see Ferraris lifted up there.

In my opinion, try to talk to the dealer you purchased from - they may compensate part of the bill. Just be nice. I had a similar incident before where the dealer actually elected to pay all of the bill for a recently sold car.

 

That's correct. If you are in a good relationship (and frienship) with the shop since many years, you will find a solution: I'm sure they will try to help you in fixing the car at a reasonable cost. If you have time and you have the help of the shop too, a way to save money can be found very likely. I remenbre when Lamborghini asked me 4500 euro (almost 6k USD) for a stupid clutch bearing collar and 3000 euro (almost 4 k USD) for some small camshaft bearings: instead of throwing away 10 K USD just for the spare parts, I wasted some time, but the total cost was 1,5 k USD including labor! So, don't hire lawyers, use your relationship with the shop, give them some time and I'm sure they will ask you to pay just the cost of the spare parts and a bit of the labor. Spare parts (usually it's just a stupid sensor, I haven't a California, but the gearbox issue is well known...) can be found on a wrecked car, on another wrecked car with the same gearbox and so on. If you have the shop help for free, you will came out the problem without selling the house!

And then yes, those are Italian supersport cars: better using them for not many miles and just on good surfaces, during sunny days and so on. They work, they can be used as a daily driver, but the maintenence cost will go up a lot, as some spare (and works) have an out of mind cost. So, if you aren't a millionaire, maybe better use them just everynow and then.

Good luck with your gearbox issue

ciao

 

I think it varies by state law but usually there is a standard warranty of 30 or 90 days for every car sale... check your state’s consumer protection laws...

SV

 

This thread for the most part has good information, imo. I owned a 2010 California and drove it heavily.

First, very sorry for the owner who got burned after spending time money and emotion.

The only thing I might add is that the DCT has a heat exchanger which in the 2010 is located at the front of the car. I’m pretty sure that Ferrari added a second heat exchanger in a different location at the rear which is closer to the DCT in order to produce better thermal control of the DCT. I also believe that this helped to reduce these problems.

FWIW the 458 has two dedicated heat exchangers for its DCT which are located very close to the box thereby reducing delays and inefficiencies involved with pumping fluid through longer lengths of plumbing which have neglibible active cooling functionality.

 

Can anyone confirm the information reguarding MY vehicles that were prone to DCT failures? From research I have done it appears mid 2012 they added the rear heat exchanger and the DCT failures appear to have went away.

So is it safer to buy a mid 2012 and up? I have read that the sensor failures could still occur on later cars but is significantly reduced.

Personally I'd rather have a Cali 30 anyways and given the information Motab provided earlier in the thread I've basically eliminated shopping for anything built prior to January 2012 which is unfortunate since some fairly nice 2010 models are now sub 100k.

 

I’ve heard this too. However what does the Ferrari factory extended warranty cost to add to a Certified Ferrari that would cover DCT issues?


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I want to say the power warranty is an additional 7k per year after it's been inspected and all issues discovered in the inspection addressed. However like you mentioned a CPO will come with 1 year power and one year scheduled maintainance.

However most of the californias I have been seeing at Ferrari dealers are T's or highly optioned Cali 30's. Most of the first gen Cali's are at independent dealers.

When I was looking last summer the 2 I did have PPI performed on found a laundry list of issues with one car having 3 major repair issues top sensor malfunction a significant leak in the F1 system and damaged front CCB rotors.

Given what Motab said in post #17 it appears that the cars that are prone to the issue have the issue occur more often then I was led to believe, and possibly that the cars that have had the issue more then likely will have it reoccur. While I'm not a "poor" person buying a car that by one Ferrari mechanic's account DCT issues occur enough to have several cars per month in for DCT repairs and it's only one shop in the country it's a bad purchase prospect for any car year prone to the issue even with a power warranty. And while 7k appears to be the price some have paid his quote of 17k makes a purchase a definite no for me, again reguardless of weather or not I had the power warranty.

At this point I'm back to considering a newish maserati Granturismo or possibly a 15 up Cali T (but hopefully the 13 and 14 Cali 30 which I prefer) since I was more drawn to the California for its reliability ease of maintainance lack of required high dollar maintainance other then a full brake service. To gamble and hope I purchase a car that won't have the issue is just too much of an edge to the house (Ferrari service dept.) and I am choosing to not play that game. In layman terms it's like the difference in buying a car that might have a transmission issue and a car that will have one. Given the comments by Motab I no longer feel confident enough that early model Californias might have DCT issues I'm convinced they will.

Hopefully the Cali 30 will be in my price range when I'm ready to purchase. Right now there are 2 2013 Cali 30's in my anticipated price point. And hopefully the 13-14 isn't prone to the DCT issue.

 

I have noticed that the 2010 California are generally the most heavily optioned California’s on the used market. The same is true for the 2012 FF. I am not saying that this is a firm and fast rule, but just what I observed shopping for these two cars the last 6 months. I think Ferrari must have made buyers load then up with options when the car was first released. I think this makes the early cars better buys on the used market if you are looking for certain features. I have found LED steering wheels and backup cameras are more common on the 2010 than later years. Same for Passenger Display on the FF. Also heavily optioned Cali 30 ($260,000+ MSRP) go fast and carry a pretty large premium in the used market. That makes the heavily optioned early cars a good buy to some.

 

DCT problem occurred sporadic (lost even gears, hot weather 38°C, mountain roads) on my previous 2013 Cali 30 around 37000 Km. Actually bad sensors are replaced by the same spare parts quality. Dealer are able to reproduce this DCT problem if it's happened sporadically to check which sensors are concerned (they overheat the DCT, short time !!!! how they did tell me ).
The best option if you buy a Cali is the warranty !

 

So you had a Cali 30 that had the DCT issue?

 

Yes, lost odd gears one hour driving mountain road, recovered without stopping the car after driving highway road (more air flow on the DCT). Problem fixed under warranty, sensors replaced, they know how to reproduce the failure if the sensors are just outside specifications.
DCT problems start to occur with the more recent Cali 30 & there is less cars on the market compared to the original Cali number.

 

Thanks for sharing the information on the Cali 30. Now im wondering is the Cali T is having the issue as well, and by all accounts it would seem so. It also seems like you were at least able to regain use of your DCT due to the added cooling added at the rear of the car. One would hope that Getrag would be able to develop sensors that can handle the heat of the F1 fluid.

I wonder what other DCT they use these sensors on, or if they are just in use on the Ferrari's. It also begs to question if adding the secondary transmission cooler on earlier models if it would help users recover the use of the DCT. The good news is that DCT are used in a lot of different cars so ironing out these issued should get ironed out in time. Its unfortunate that so many cars are plagued with this problem, and would seem the problem can re-occur.

 

From what I have read, heat management is the single major concern with the design of the DCTs.

In our case, judging from what we have been seeing, heat is likely causing or contributing to the failure of sensors. The implementation of the DCT on Ferraris may not be managing heat buildup well enough, leading to premature failure of sensors. This would be the bad news. The good news is that the DCTs use wet clutches so unless there is a loss of coolant and/or lubricants, mechanical part failures are much less of a concern. I have yet to come across reports of mechanical failures and have only seen sensor and wiring harness failures (caused by friction from unfortunate choice of routing of wires - apparently fixed in later cars, like the Cali30).

The sensor that was serviced in the 2016 work order that I posted earlier in this thread (loss of even gears) involved replacement of part# 70004182 (step 3 speed sensor). This same sensor kit is shared between the 458, California and FF. I have not seen it "superseded" by any newer part. The sensor kit is about €700 + tax in Italy. It looks like Getrag may not deem this part to be deficient or require an improved replacement so the situation with Ferrari's (as well as other carmakers') DCT speed sensor failures appears to be status quo - wait for a failure and then replace with the same part... wait for the next failure...etc. Not a good strategy if you are an owner.

While transmission service is not unusual for regular transmissions, the Getrag 7DCL750 DCT is supposed to not require any service for the life of the car. So even though DCT service costs have come down a lot, this sort of failure should not happen with machinery that was designed to not require any service!

 

Yeah its kinda obvious that the issue lies with Getrag. After reading comments again about DCT failures I googled Dual Clutch Transmission issues and was pretty surprised at the result. Apparently a once rising technology was outright abandoned by FCA, and is in the process of being abandoned by Ford and Honda all in North America. And there are several lawsuits against Ford due to DCT failures. Interestingly enough the transmissions in the FCA and Fords were Getrag DCT. It didnt mention why FCA dropped the contract to install more then 800000 DCT but in Fords case it is due to outright transmission failure, most of which were electrical in nature and appear to be blaming nearly all of the issues on the TCM. Its also important to note that the ford units are dry clutch units and apparently drivers were causing internal component damage due to operating the transmissions in the same manner as an automatic and creeping forward in stop and go traffic.

So it appears that IF the technology is fleshed out it can deliver blisteringly fast shifts, and can deliver better fuel economy the technology is still "new" and working the kinks out. As 4th gear also pointed out it appears that wet clutch DCT only appear to suffer from internal electrical component failure. I speculate that any mechanical failure is due to either faulty component or manufacturing defect. I further speculate that at least until current stock of existing replacement parts are used up there will be no "upgraded" parts and thats only if Getrag spends the money to develop an improved part. It appears they are losing a lot of money with Ford abandoning use of the DCT. Apparently Ferrari and Alfa Romeo will continue to use Getrag DCT.

So it appears that if you want to buy any of the modern DCT cars it is in your best interest to extend the warranty and/or purchase the power warranty, or just pay for the repair outright and consider that your "clutch service" as you would on an f430 down model. As far as how frequent the DCT may or may not happen on the California is a shot in the dark since there are plenty of folks that have never had an issue, some that have had multiple issues and Mechanics that say there are multiple cars per month in the shop for DCT repairs. So it appears that if you are worried about a failure purchase a power warranty or buy an earlier model or move on to another car all together.

 

Really sorry to hear that ... some of us just go ahead and get the Ferrari New Power warranty every year to just sleep easy at night knowing if something like this happens, it's already been paid for up front. I have a 2013 California 30, it's just turned 18,000 miles and other than a problem with a top sensor, it's been trouble free for the 13k miles I've put on it the last 2.5 years, but I bought the two year warranty extension, which is up at the end of June. I may need to let the car go shortly -- going through a bit of an life change here -- and if I do the new owner will have a few months of factory warranty left, but I will recommend that they extend it, and if I do keep the car, I will extend it myself.

 

Yep, there is no longer a question in my mind the new power warranty is a must if you buy one of these cars, especially if you make a hearty down payment and finance the balance.

 

I 100% agree. I do not think this issue with DCT was foreseen or intended by Ferrari. However, it appears the unintended effect is that factory authorized Ferrari dealers may be the only real used sellers of DCT equipped cars as word spreads. Informed buyers will likely only want cars from Ferrari dealers so they can purchase the extended factory warranties. Seems to create a captive market for Ferrari dealers to be almost the exclusive sellers of DCT equipped cars. After reading horror stories about DCT issues, why would anyone buy an out warranty car from a private seller or non-Ferrari dealer since there is huge risk by not having the ability to buy the apparently obligatory extended factory warranty?

To me, it seems these DCT cars, as cool and great as they are, can be a huge liability even compared to manual and the F1 transmissions of the last 20 years.


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Maybe the OP may have recourse under the state’s used car warranty laws.

This leads me to think why would any dealer in a state that mandates such used car limited warranties want to take on the risk of selling one of these DCT equipped cars. Seems the profit made can be a fraction of what repair costs can be?

Even if the state mandates only 30 days, these issues can certainly arise in that short time as we see here. I guess the question is really what must dealerss do in those mandated time periods if one has a DCT problem?


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I think you're mistaken about the comparative reliability of DCTs vs F1 transmissions.

The F1 transmission requires regular maintenance and has many more issues with operational problems and expensive hardware failures. The costs from these problems add up. Just Google and you'll see. While there have been DCT problems with some cars, the actual problems were always innocuous and the costs were due to the labor, wiring harness, sensors and replacement fluids. Since the system is designed to be maintenance-free unless you are one of the unfortunate owners, there is no maintenance involved. As you pointed out, DCTs also perform much better so at least they deliver higher performance if that's important.

I personally haven't come across any DCT failures but I believe they do happen. I mentioned HEAT MANAGEMENT being the primary design concern for DCTs. I suspect most of the DCT failures involve heat-related failures. To avoid "over-heating" issues, I would not drive these cars in traffic jams or lug them around at low speeds. They were not designed for stop-and-go. This is another good reason not to treat them as daily drivers if your daily trips involve urban drudgery. I suspect there are more DCT failures in warm climate locations where owners tend to drive their cars in traffic jams.

Finally, manual stick-shift transmissions are a completely different matter... because their performance reliability depend MOSTLY on the skills and luck of the human operator - poor skills with the clutch will result in premature wear and poor performance while a single mistake over-revving a downshift will ruin the engine!

 

Just to clarify I think a lot of the discussion in this thread related to DCT issues comes from post #17. While I put great stock in the information you provide, Michael, but given that Motab is a professional Ferrari Technician and the info he provided reguarding number is cars per month with DCT issues it would seem that the issue is far worse them many of us thought. And I was surprised to find out in this thread that Cali 30s have even had the issue.

Then add the information he provided reguarding cost for repair. I read several post showing the cost to be what you stated and perhaps the dealer Motab works for charges differently for this repair. I have read that for instance Boardwalk Ferrari charges less for several services and some parts then other dealer locations in the country. Reguardless for some the repair cost is a pittance and for others such as the OP a significant problem.

Also I cannot disuse what you say about the F1 transmission and the DCT. Other then the DCT sensor failures you have a better performing unit that requires no maintainance other then fluid changes. The thing that get me is Getrag supplying parts that aren't upgraded to handle the heat. Even in stop and go traffic I can't see the transmission operating outside it's design perameters. (Though if you are in stop and go hopefully you are in manual mode and not creeping a lot). As I have said before possibly in another post is that Getrag updates the components to withstand the heat better.

Given the new information I still haven't removed the California from my list of potential cars, nor has it changed my mind thatnitnisnat the top of the list, but it has changed my mind as far as how picky I'll be, and that I will be buying one with a new power warranty.

 

Yes, I factored in Motob's comments. He works in Berkeley CA which experiences urban/suburban California traffic and climate. There are many people (espec. celebrities) in the SF and LA areas who drive their Ferraris on a daily basis.

Businesses operate under their own local conditions regarding overhead as well as competition. I posted a copy of an actual dealer work order from 2016 for a common DCT complaint. Perhaps Motob or others can provide the same 1st-hand information, and then perhaps we can have a fact-based discussion; rather than rely on hearsay.

If you do not know enough about F1 transmissions to discuss them here then you are likely getting ahead of yourself in this discussion.

There was a big deal made about Getrag losing a DCT contract with Ford and Honda. Those deals appeared to have involved low-end dry clutch DCTs, not the wet clutch 7DCL750. They are very different product lines. Just as different as making a design-vs-cost comparison between current Ford Focus or Honda Accord design to a 10-year-old Ferrari California design.

BTW, there is a mistake in your post about DCTs and ALFA Romeo - I was too busy to comment earlier but now that you mention Getrag's problems with Ford and Honda... ALFA 4C uses a FIAT TCT ("twin clutch tran." with a dry clutch) called the FPT C635. It's not a wet clutch made by Getrag. Other top-of-the-line ALFAs use automatic transmissions instead of the TCT. So it's not a high-torque premium product, it's only applicable with smaller engines.

If you want more facts on Getrag 7DCL750 DCTs look up some of my posts on other forums. BTW, the new Ford GT uses the same Getrag 7DCL750 used on our Ferraris. Other car makers also use the 7DCL750. Not all contracts between Ford and Getrag were lost. Ford picked the flagship DCT for their flagship car. The 7DCL750 is a premium Getrag product, not to be confused with less expensive, lower performing Getrag products designed for much lower engine torque requirements, shorter life cycles. A dry clutch is a guarantee of clutch wear and maintenance.

However, problems do not occur without reason(s). So there is definitely a problem with Ferrari's implementation of the Getrag 7DCL750 on some cars as the DCTs were supposed to not even require regular service. OTOH, even after 5 years of ownership I do not have an impression that it is a big issue. There's also an element of "personal investment" in such less-than-clearcut discussions. I normally just rely on information I can personally verify because of this human element, especially with Internet discussions, as you cannot verify who is actually make the claims or why they are making the claims. That's why I am very big on posting actual proof of assertions that I make (like with the Ford GT and ALFA 4C). Otherwise, I will clearly only offer opinions and unqualified comments.

So my advice would be to separate assertions from unverified opinions.