This is the kind of stuff scares 355 buyers...

It's a SIXTEEN year old Ferrari. If you factor a $2K a year budget there should be $32K worth of receipts- anything less and the car is neglected.

The only way to avoid service on any used Fcar is to buy one new or just a few years old- but then you have the ghastly depreciation- Chose your poison.

You can go years with only annual services and then you replace a bunch of stuff or do the major and all the "While we're in there" stuff. If people didn't love these cars they would be non runners like so many other high priced cars from the 90s.

 

It's 20 years old, but who's counting.

 

20 years old and only 11,000 miles is the real story of that car. If it had average miles at 15,000/year like most cars..it would have 300,000 miles and that service amount might seem more reasonable...The clock keeps ticking on these cars driven or not!

 

Exactly right. It sounds like this car has been looked after properly and professionally.
Rather than scaring people off, this is the kind of car they should be looking at.

It's a Ferrari for goodness sake! If you're not prepared to budget $2k a year for proper maintenance, buy a Toyota.

 

Get a Yaris..

 

Those service figures sound mild to me. I have receipts for 3 majors on my 355. All of them were more than $10k each, 12-14k range if I remember correctly. Then there is everything in between the majors. Maintenance receipts in hand at purchase added up to more than my purchase price for the car.

Now I am budgeting for a $10k major every 5 years and doing everything in between myself. Not too bad for the baddest car on the planet.

 

The 355 seem plagued by many, many expensive issues, including valve guides and tops and headers and boom---sounds scary to many I suspect. That's a helleva ticket to ride 11k miles.

 

This will surely raise some eyebrows but the truth is the truth… I dare say at least 40% of that work didn’t need to be done to the car. I’m not going to go into a big long post rather I will word it like this. Take your 355 to an authorized dealer/repair shop and tell them your exhaust is making noise and you don’t know what’s wrong with it. I dare bet you will leave the shop with new headers maybe even cats, new muffler oh and while they were replacing those things they also found out your blinker fluid was low and therefor needed to rebuild your hyper drive with the special Ferrari alloy that can only be found in the very bottom of the Mariana trench. But wait! It’s not so bad after all they gave you a discount for being a good customer which brought the bill down to only 1 billion dollars. 

I know not all shops would do this but the reality is there are a good many that will take advantage of the innocent.

This isn’t news to any of us I just felt the need to say it…

 

Well, so the cup is always half empty for you right?

 

....(eyebrow raised)....

 

Sorry guys I never subscribed to the Ferrari tax unless it was a last resort.

And yes, I am in a negative mood tonight...

 

+1

 

You know what scares me? FChat.

 

Looking at those receipts the only thing I could think of was "sucker, much of that was really needed? Both fans went? Shocks... Did the actuators go? Why didn't he get them rebuilt?"...

 

That's the deal. If you're not willing to invest the time and effort to AT LEAST learn about your car, how it works, and how to troubleshoot the basics, expect to pay somebody else to. Leave it all to somebody else, and you deserve what you get, especially with a car such as this. It's for enthusiasts, and unfortunately it appeals to posers.

 

My car is a 1999 355f1 since march of this year i have put on 24000km -16000 miles
My car is a 99 so i think it has steel guides just did i comp test last week and all cylinders are from 205 to 215 it has fab speed headers tubi cats and muffler sounds unreal. which were on the car when i bought it.In 24000km this year i have spent $300 on three oil changes,two motor mounts $140 each and one used actuator $250 from plugzit bruce nice guy,my old one could not be rebuilt motor was gone.My car has 81000km on it now which is about 50000 miles and my car was a rebuild when it was two years old,which most people would not touch.I just don't understand how some have these hugh bills when they don't drive there cars? My point is that maybe more people should drive there cars more often and enjoy them.I allways say a happy FERRARI is a driven FERRARI and so is the owner,and when i bought the car two years ago it only had 27000km with a fresh service.
I will service it next year when i hit 100000km not before then... unless she blows up...and if she does i will just fix her.

 

With all due respect, that's total crap and fuel to scare people off. This year I bought a 9870 mile car with 2 majors done in it's life and it was far from neglected

 

Am I crazy for not finding anything shocking about that service history. its no secret that 355s are expensive to own. This car is 20 plus years old, to me it looks like it was professionally and properly maintained.

 

I'm I crazy? lets see JOE...Smile
all four shocks changed? one of my actuator's went did i change all four shocks NO replaced with a used actuator $ 250.00 and 10 min labour.

replaced both fans? I bet it was only a fuse or temp sender $45.00 and 1 hr labour.
Both fans went at the same time...i don't think so.

lead wires I don't think they would go if the car was just sitting..remember this car only has 11000 miles same goes with the cats at that mileage.
The belt services i can see because it worse when the car just sits.
Joe this is all in fun i'm not being a smart ass.

 

Without being able to clearly read the invoices, my opinion is based more on the expense incurred generally. Personally, I would hope to see a major service performed at least every 5 years whether sitting or not. Divide that into 20 years and you have 4 major services at around 5k per service-at least. Add to that the while you are in there's and the host of other things that rot out and die just from sitting and I probably expect to see what would average out to about 2500/year in maintenance if the car was maintained by a dealer or independent. We can debate whether the repairs on this particular car were legitimate or not all day long, but neither of us will ever really know, my point is that the aggregate amount paid for service over a 20 year period seemed reasonable... At least coming from a testarossa owner's perspective

 

I would be far more afraid of a 355, that had only a handful of 3 digit receipts, no matter the miles ......

+1000 ............ drive them and sort them is the only real way to refine and maintain the 355 .....