Thrill is Gone...Thrill is Gone Away!

May i suggest that you put your daily in the garage to collect dust and drive that beautiful machine everywhere you go...? Like, 3 in the morning, to get milk or whatever - just go EVERYwhere in it... It's no fun when you set a time to do it; the best driving can sometimes be when you least expect it...

i only own one car - a Chrysler Sebring Convertible - but i get excited just driving THAT...! Everytime i get in it, i look forward to the short drive home or to work or to the store or wherever...

Are you bored with other things in your life, as well...? Do you find yourself interested in things you can't do and just wish and wonder all day that you could do THEM instead of play with the Ferrari...? i think you need to change it up a bit; forget the daily - you only live once... Take the Ferrari out and take it out, everywhere you go... What is it about the Ferrari that's lost it's magic...?

 

Sorry to hear that this has happened. It's like anything though, you can't expect some material thing or otherwise to complete your life, it comes from within. Material items have to be icing on the cake. Regardless, you must have been able to enjoy most of it??? Take a rest and when you're ready come back and I'm sure you'll appreciate it more.

 

IMO, if I drove my F355 everyday I would get bored with it. As we all live busy lives, I haven't had much time to drive it except on Sundays for my usual drives around town looking at real estate. That got boring too and I'd almost rather do it in my Lexus. We've been having some nice weather here in Chicago lately and around midnight I hopped in the car and decided to take a spirited highway drive. I was hitting 8000rpm thru 3rd and 4th, taking it up to 120mph, and laying rubber at the toll booths. Then it became clear again as to why I love this car so much. It's not the fastest car I've owned, but it has been the most satisfying and the most fun to drive.

 

I can relate. I have had a few nitpicky problems recently with this 550 and I DO drive it every day. I have thought about changing up but I keep falling back in love with it. Just tonight, I was out on my nightly cigar and fun run and found myself racing at about 120MPH down Olympic Blvd (through Beverly Hills) with a silver GT2. Yeah, we had a little fun!

I always say that it is time to sell a car when you stop turning to look at it after you park. My problem is that I STILL turn around, stand in the garage and get the chills for 30 seconds after a full day of driving!

DL

 

My friend you need Crystal Cove. And tons of it.

but since your profile doesnt say where you reside... I shall procede to explain what CC is... every saturday morning ferrari owners, and other exotic's owners meet at a parking lot... and it's just tons of fun... do you have any car meets like that in your area??? If you say the "Ferrari magic" is gone, have you tried with other exotics?

best regards.

George.

 

Ferrari's, like a large home, have operational costs, and unless you understand this upfront, I can't possibly know what you were expecting when you got it. Then again, there are lemons.

I explained to a friend once that scoffed at a $42,000 Dior original gown. If you are not accustomed to, or do not appreciate its place in fashion, you can never be made to understand. Plus $2k for dry cleaning and only wearing it once or twice would kill you.

I will also say I never appreciated my 850csi, it was just another bulky BMW to me, but to a BMW enthusiast, it was a dream car. I got it because everyone in Hollywood had one, so I bought purely on 'keeping up with the Joneses'. I had to replace water pups every 10k miles, the 550 (at double the cost) on the otherhand was far more reliable.

One thing I have learned about Ferrari owners in general from Crystal Cove meets, if you have a p.o.s. rust bucket Ferrari or an Enzo, you are part of our family. If you come and appreciate what each car symbolizes at each point in the Ferrari history, you can get a deeper understanding and appreciation, but there is no simple answer to why you no longer have that enthusiasm for your car. Maybe the operational costs have made it a little hazy for you.

I certainly do not plan on owning any of the newer Ferraris, I have lost my taste for their road cars starting with the 360 and solidified with the Enzo. I will never stop loving Ferrari though.

 

The word is plateau, it happens to everything in the duality "life"
I know exactly how you feel and what your saying.
Try picking up a good Zen book, like
"Where ever you go there you are". Its good to read about
these thing in life and that book is a good place to start.
Life is funny.

 

1) Dump the 'friend' who is ragging on your car. If he's beating you down, he's not a friend.

2) When people ask how the car is, say "fine". It's kinda like asking your 86 year old aunt how she's doing --- you really don't care to hear all the details. Neither do they, and if you don't have to repeat the problems you won't focus on them

3) No older Ferrari is ever perfect. Just as pilots keep a "this needs to be fixed but isn't critical" list on the big airliners, you should keep that kind of list on your car. When you get a chance, fix one or two. Don't sweat keeping it all perfect as long as it's safe to drive.

4) Now that you've accepted it's not perfect, go drive the thing until the wheels fall off. Try to see if you can sandblast the nose all the way to the primer just by doing triple digits. Take the next left and see exactly which states the Interstate crosses. Take lots of pictures, and stop at all the small towns.

5) Find similar minded people in your area. There is a NC contingent here on Fchat. You could also look for other exotics in your area -- Lotus, Lambo, etc. Start a club with a website and advertise, leave business cards under your wiper blades when you're parked in public. You can build your own support community in this way.....that's sort of what Rob did here.

6) See number 4

7) Make plans to go to the USGP in Indy next year, and the FCA national meet. Caravan up with others from the Carolinas and Florida

Just some thoughts. Alternatively, sell the thing and move on.....

 

many people on this board say the more you drive them, the better they get, maybe you should drive it more to prevent all those nagging little maintenance issues that are popping up. Some people might say that is due to lack of use (I happen to be one of those people)

 

Owning a ferrari is like dating a hot chic.

She is high maintenance and if you keep on hitting it everyday you will get sick of it. There are ups and downs.

But when you are in public and other guys looks at your girl up and down then you realize she is special.

Don't get rid of your car, you might regret it.

Maybe your 308 chic is not hot enough for ya. I got a friend who also own a 308 and is totally fed up with it. He traded in for a 355 fell in love all ova again.

Lamarossa

 

Novelty is fleeting...build a bridge and get over it!!

Ya know, I got my wife some really nice black lingerie and some nasty high heels and it was all arousing and hot for the first couple (select: hours, days, weeks)...but after a while, it's just not the same thrill. That's life. Is it our downfall? Nahh...I think complacency is the sign of an eroding sense of life. You know that old saying: be careful of what you ask for...you just may get it. Then there's that other saying about not playing with something too much cause you'll go blind. And then there's that....uh..nevermind.

You know what you need to do dude....time to crank it up a few notches and up the ante. Unlike our wives that we can never get away from, you have the option to exercise your free will and move on to find what else may excite you. You don't have anything that a hundred horsepower and a few new lines couldn't solve. Time to move along to a different model Ferrari!

Now while this all may sound like a bunch of jibberish and a blatant attempt to work some sexually alluring subject matter into a distorted solution to your dilemna...here's my prescribtion: buy a 355 and call me in the morning! Your stagnated and need a change of pace. I know your concerned about missing her...but if you buy the right new toy, it'll be just fine!!!!

 

....and if that gets boring...you can always try combining several of your favorite things:
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I have the cure. Come join your LOCAL Ferrari owners on November 13th for a rally/banquet in Pinehurst & Chapel Hill. Plan to spend the night at the Siena Hotel, and it'll make it a much easier day. If you want to make it a 2-day event and not such a long drive, you're welcome to stay with me in Winston-Salem (garage space and everything!) on Friday evening.

Believe me, spending a day -surrounded- by Ferrari's rippin' through the countryside will ABSOLUTELY fix the problem. Ask ANY owner here, and I'm sure they'll agree, Ferrari's LOVE to drive in packs. Seeing 3 or 4 in your rearview mirror and listening to the ground shake when everybody fires them up is absolutely awe-inspiring. If pressed, I'd trade EVERY solo driving day in my car for 1/2 as many days driving with the local owners in North Carolina.

PM me, email me, whatever. Whether we have 20 cars are 10 cars in our rally, it'll beat being the lone 308 in Asheville. (BTW, there are cars up there... ya just gotta know where to look!)

Can anyone deny that a pack run will bring back the love?


-Daniel

 

There are two approaches to maintaining Italian cars -- one thing at a time, or comprehensive regular maintenance.

In the latter case, you have to have a really good mechanic that you really trust. If you have to see the broken parts before you're sure that it needs a new one, then you'll have to fix things one at a time, as they break.

But if you can build up a relationship with your mechanic, you might be able to trust his judgement when he tells you that he's replacing the technobabble doohickey because it won't last another 15K.

I owned Alfas for ten years under that formula, drove them every day, and had a total of two technical issues between services.

And a 308 isn't a factory new car. It has some older parts. Comprehensively maintained, it can continue until the frame rusts (or an asteroid falls on it), but left to sit in the garage, seals will dry out, parts will get crusty, etc.

I tell people to expect to spend a quarter of the purchase price in service to bring a used Italian car up to "daily" reliability. This is because (a) your mechanic isn't familiar with the machine, and will require more labor time to go over it than when he's more familiar with it, and (b) NOBODY sells an italian sports car when it's running perfectly.

It's when they "go light" on maintenance and get inundated with an endless stream of little issues that they get rid of the car. E.g. a car that is maintained to daily levels doesn't get sold. The typical sports car for sale has been ignored, then given a quick "clean up" maintenance before going on the market. There are exceptions, but expect the worst when buying a car someone else has fallen out of love with.

The alternative to spending a ton of money every 15K miles -- depending on your time and skill availability -- is to do your own maintenance. There's a whole other aspect to Ferraris: they are examples of impressive engineering. If you can get into exploring the underpinings of the performance, then a little problem becomes an excuse to get into your cars "pants" again, rather than an annoying drain on the budget.

Oh, and don't let your jealous friends bug you. I had a friend that constantly ragged me about the cost of a "routine" maintenance on my italian cars. Then I asked him how much he lost in depreciation by replacing his new cars every two years. I've owned my Alfa for 25 years. I think I've gotten my money's worth out of the purchase price.

The fantasy isn't just the car. One of the most common "fantasies" in the US is the belief that you can drive a sports car by instinct. These are mechanical contrivances -- the controls are fairly common now, but if you look at the history of the automobile, you'll see that the pedals used to be different, the throttle use to be somewhere else, there used to be tillers instead of wheels for steering, etc. This is a machine, like a computer or a VCR. You have to read the manual, and need lessons to go to the level of a "certified specialist". It isn't just "use the Porsche, Luke".

For the owner who isn't planning to go to the track, you have to ease into performance on any car. You can't just jump out of a Yugo into a Ferrari and expect to exercise the car's limits. It's a matter of raising the driver's limits to match the car's. I'd owned and driven italian sports cars for twenty years before I bought my Ferrari, and even ran a Fiat in rally, and it still took me six months to get "in tune" with my car before I could push it's limits. If you are planning to go onto the track, then a performance driving school is virtually mandatory.

There are cars that put more effort into making it easy on the driver -- often sacrificing peak performance to do so. Porsches put a lot of effort (and hardware/software) into making the driver feel as though he's doing a good job. One comment about the EVO is how easy it is to push to the limits. The classic Ferraris aren't like this. They let you know when you get it wrong, so you can do better next time. (That's one reason I keep the Alfa -- you don't have to get it out on the track to expore the limits and get the car's "report card" -- it's good spring refresher training.) But it's a matter of choice whether you prefer the harsh mistress or the pliable playmate in cars.

 

I understand completely how you feel! But I can tell you out of my own experience that once she is gone you will start to miss her. My other car is a P 996 convertible. It has all the goodies and is extremely reliable. But it is not the same!
I am currently in the market for a new Ferrari again.

Ton

 

Satfre,

man, thats a beautiful 308............I'd be proud to own that one.............get out and enjoy it, then get rid off the friend that you call a friend.
0.02

 

Read and learn from one whe fell by the wayside, only to return to the true path

 

i had my 348ts for 3 years loved it didnt drive enough looking back. and at a lot of times thought like you thought, even though it never broke on me. now i have a 2000 viper gts it is much faster, newer feeling, but you know what I miss my ferrari, shanb let me drive his 348 about a month or two ago and It just felt right. you will miss it if you get rid of it. trust me.

john

 

I'll try not to get too philosophical or quote ancient scriptures here...sell your 308, do life without it for awhile, get evened out emotionally, see how you feel. You're a car addict just like everyone else here so have fun objectively checking out other Ferrari models, including vintage, as well as whatever other cars you've fancied. If you find you can't live without a Ferrari then the field is wide open, within your $$ comfort zone.

Personally, I've put my three-year journey from sudden middle-aged crazy obsession to ongoing ownership reality into daily perspective. It is another car that needs insurance and maintenance, and, though quite reliable, is an ongoing project. But the mystique remains, at a sane level. No other car that I could afford could make each drive such a complete engagement of the senses and attention, a tactile, noisy retro-thrill that just seems to improve with time.

 

It seems you have two problems:
1-Nit picky maintenance problems
2-The Ferrari aura is gone.

Let me speak to #1. My Jag XJS which I've owned (gosh has it been 6 years?) was driving me a bit nuts to the point I would wag my finger and say "You're not a Lotus you know, if you were I'd put up with all of this, but you're just a Jag." Well for the past 2 years I have had absolutely no problems. Hang in there, you will get there sooner than you think.

Regarding #2, have you ever gone to a show-and-shine with other makes of cars? Don't people just fall over your car? Try it! Sometimes I too need to pinch myself to remind me that I am driving the very same car me AND EVERY GUY dreams about driving. Sometimes we 'can't see the forest for the trees', perhaps you two need some time apart, perhaps you need to see it drive by. I too have a Black GTS so I love your car, but when I drove around this summer and saw a red GTS it was like I forgot I had one and said "Oh my GOSH, a REAL FERRARI!!!" Maybe you need to get a red one!?!

Unless there is a pressing need to sell it now I would hang onto it for a while yet. You have a good car, and a good investment. Don't panic.

Best!
Wes

 

I have pictures of my Ferrari on the refrigeratror.

When guests drop by they see the photo and ask, "Is that your dream car?".

I say no...that one is mine.

It still makes me smile.

If stuff like that doesn't do it for you then sell it to someone and make them happy.