Trying to deconstruct - costly 'major' repairs F-Cars...

The answer is simple, these cars are not meant for everyone, just like a solid gold Rolex at $50 grand, and a 8,000 sq ft house with property taxes at $18k. It's not a right to own anything expensive....people need to accept this. It's there, and if you are able then go ahead...if not .... Then you apace no business in it. It really is this simple.

 

Yes and no, the mystic is of course one factor with brand recognition, we all have to pay extra to have the brand label...and Ferrari does that part well. But....you also have to look at the technical advances in these cars with every new model...case in point the 355 was the first car with f1 paddles for the mass market .... Today, everyone and there brother has added this expensive , yet great driving experience to there cars....but to develop it first is always more expensive.

The best way I can explain this is look at the drug companies....Glaxo for example spends multi millions to develop new drugs....they need a patent to protect them..or else everyone would go for a generic drug at half the cost. If you really think of the 458 today, there are many cars that can perform just as well, close too for a fraction of the price....but only a small few have the prestige, and wow factor.

The service costing is part of the program like an 8,000 sq house is in forest hill....it is not meant for everyone. Those that can ...do, those that cant ...don't....and the hacks you see trying to cobble a Ferrari to run is reflected in many cases on resale....hence, the really nice cars always cost more, no matter how hard everyone tries to talk them down.

Parts are parts, and usually an oem part only .... Labour is labour.... Couple that with the fact you need the odd special tools for a Ferrari and there you go...an expensive trip. The fact that for so many years on here many continue to try and best this system , it hasn't happened....it's something you accept ...simple as that. The reality also is, there are owners in these cars, that frankly shouldn't be in them in the first place.

Good luck in your future experiences, I know for the last 13 yrs I have had my ups and downs with these cars...but one thing I can assure you....a Ferrari is way...way cheaper than a divorce

 

Cheap prices usually come in volume, especially on parts, as you need to either sell a high number of parts at a low price to make up tooling and design costs, or sell a low amount of parts at a high price. Ferrari parts are low volume, so high price. No mystery there and why most aftermarket parts are also expensive. Small market. If you sell 1/10 the number of parts, you need to charge 10x the cost to make up your setup and design costs.

Labor prices are expensive because while you can take a Toyota in and have, say, a CV joint replaced in 2 hours, it takes 4 hours in a Ferrari because there is much lower tolerance for scratches, smudges etc. in the engine compartment and underside than there is in a Toyota. The shop can also not afford to eat the 10x cost of parts if they don't do it right, where a Toyota dealership can throw a new CV joint in for cheap and not be out a bunch of money if they make a mistake, an exotic car repair shop would be out 10x the cost so there is much less tolerance for errors. They also have higher overhead on specialized tools, which are more expensive for the same reason the parts are, low volume.

Then, because there are a lot less cars, there isn't as large a sample size in terms of troubleshooting and repair of problems. Where a toyota sells 100,000 cars and say .5% have a specific problem, that's still 500 cars. If that happens on a Ferrari that sells 1000, that's 5 cars, so there's not as large a knowledge base on repairs, making diagnosis and repair of less common problems much more labor intensive. Throw in the fact that these cars see 1/10 the miles of a normal car and 'common' problems that would show up within a year or two of manufacture on a normal car don't show up for 10-15 years. By the time you have a large enough sample size for the cars to be fully understood (if you ever get enough), they're already 15 years old.

 

This is correct. I do quite alot of business in the automotive manufacturing industry, and am privliged to see many numbers, details, costs which 99.9% of the rest of the automotive population can not....

Auto business is all about numbers and volume. The more the cheaper, the less the costlier. Each car models' Production tooling and infrastructure is the same for Toyota and Ferrari, the big difference is that the cost of said models' tooling and infrastructure is ammortized over 250,000 vehicles for Toyota, and 10,000 cars for Ferrari.

Another factor is that most Toyota's, Chevy's etc are 90% robot assembled. The robot assembly line could cost $1000 an hour for them. Ferrari's are (guessing?) 50% robot assembled, and 50% hand assembled. A Toyota will take 12 hours to assemble totally, where a Ferrari will take 30 hours to assemble totally. Multilply this by the hourly rate, and you will get a large difference. (Ferrari assembly line cost could possibly be $2000 an hour?)

Another factor is materials...most Toyota's and Chevy's are 60% Steel, and 40% Plastic. All the bumbers, rocker panels, undercarriage is plastic molded. (Very cheap). And most steel panels are thin, and cheapest steel as possible.

I would guess that there is hardly any plastic in a Ferrari aside from some eletrical and support components. Most material is aluminum (expensive) and carbon fibre (very expensive). And the costs to cut and mold the carbon fibre is also very expensive.

Add a set of 4 Brembo brakes and carbon discs, ($25,000).... Double Clutch transmission, and fancy Alcantara interior, and the Ferrari quickly costs x4 than a Toyota.

 

When ferrari is being compared to toyotas it's time to get out.

I need to sell.

 

Red, a car's a car....they are all made the same way. By robot or by hand, and most of the parts are outsourced anyways.

The brand identity of Toyota and Ferrari are totally different, but the pistons and wheels etc. are the same idea if you get what I'm saying.


Difference is that Toyota and most domestic manufacturers use very basic materials, and flexible assembly lines which reduce the cost greatly.

And lets not forget that Ferrari needs to pay Alonso $40 mil a year..

 

This is true however there was a time when the door handle of a Ferrari and that of a Fiat was exactly the same save for the price, for some reason Ferrari's door handle was 3 to 4 times more expensive i have to believe that some parts are interchangable with Maserati, Alfa and other products under the Fiat Umbrella for a 10 year old+ Ferrari one has to now deal with parts availabilty and the costs associated with that, and as for todays current models, one cannot disagree with the cost of carbon fiber and other exotic materials used. Somehow though when cruising at 10/10ths, and everything the car is designed to do is in sinc. price is that much more tollerable ;-)

 

Yes I think it is, better get out fast, fire sale. Pm me

 

Cough cough....I respectfully disagree !

It's like having a veal sandwich at my mothers on Sunday as opposed to ordering a whopper from burger king.

One is very specially made for me ... The other is for everyone Else

Back on topic .... If you want to play with a Ferrari you have to pay.....

If you want to compare Toyota products, compare the Camry with the LFA

 

The notion of putting up with poor quality because one purchased a Ferrari ("If you want to play with a Ferrari you have to pay..... ") is nonsense. The Rolex I bought over 25 years ago has been in for cleaning twice in that time. It looks perfect and keeps consistently excellent time under varying extremes of use. The same goes for my Omega which is only 12 years old. Quality costs more up front, but it shouldn't cost more persistently. It does cost a LOT more to clean a mechanical watch than to buy a battery for an electric one, but along with that cost comes vastly superior quality, performance and durability. Why should we expect any less of Ferrari (or any exotic car manufacturer)?

I personally love watching Alonzo kick butt (on the occasions lately when he has) but I don't think his "cost" justifies (but maybe it explains) short-lived parts and paint quality we wouldn't accept from BMW or even Infiniti. Especially so when the high initial cost is considered. Paying 10 to 20 times the cost of an average car for a limited-production Ferrari and getting awesome styling and performance is a fair value. Paying more for parts and service is OK too, but not when those parts and service are needed at 10 to 20 times the frequency of a "normal" car.

Getting told here that one should be expecting to be screwed every time your car needs any service, and that it will need so much maintenance as to make a Yugo look reliable says something slightly less positive about the quality component of the purchase.

 

Apples and oranges. A Rolex keeps the same time as a Seiko so the only way to improve on the Seiko is to increase quality. A Toyota Camry does not perform anywhere near a Ferrari and hence can't be expected to have the same reliability. That's like saying an f1 car has poor quality because it only makes it 1500 miles between rebuilds vs. the 200,000 miles a Camry goes. Go ahead and operate a Camry at 8500-9000rpm and see how long the engine lasts. If it even makes it there one time, you can be guaranteed it won't be able to do it for hours at a time like a 458. Try taking your Camry up to a sustained 150mph on the autobahn. Oh, that's right, it can't even make it to 150mph, unlike the 458 that can run for hours at a time there. But guess what, the Seiko can count the seconds just as well as the Rolex...

 

Why do you need to rebuild a Ferrari engine while you dont with a Maserati? Don't they come out from the same factory? hmmmmmmm......

 

It has a lot to do with compression ratios. The tighter tolerances, and higher compression equals much more stress on the engine. Over the course of 10,000km, all the parts of engine are subjected to much higher forces, which will eventually fail and wear faster than the cheaper engine.

I'm sure if we can an experienced mechanic like Newman here, he could explain in better detail and accuracy.

 

I think we are agreeing on the same subject here....

I mentioned in my previous post that the Toyotas are assembled mostly by robot (Burger King Whopper style), Ferrari's are typically assembled and fitted by hand. (Veal sandwhich from Nonna).

When ordering the Toyota, you are usually allowed to have a few different options or packages...Ie Whopper with Cheese, or Bacon only.

When you order a new 458, you can customize 100 different details and options...all those different options must be managed and installed. (Like adding cheese, onions and peppers onto the veal...and even having breaded or unbreaded veal)

 

Notwithstanding everything that BigRed posted there is some excellent infomation on this thread. I used to wonder the same thing and over time (and first hand experience) a lot of it made sense. A few points to note:

- Parts are expensive because they are made in smaller numbers. So small that from a manufacturing standpoint in some instances they are considered prototype numbers. As such it would be too expensive to use mass producing techniques to make these parts which drives up the price a lot.

- Yes some parts are shared with other cars and yes Ferrari charges a lot more when they sell it through their dealer network. No real excuse here but it happens in other industries all the time too.

- Service is labor intensive because the cost of a mistake is very expensive so a lot of time is spent checking and being percise.

- A lot of preventitive stuff is done when servicing a car. Again because the cost of a failure is so high parts are changed not when they break or fully worn but on a timed interval. This is common practice with race cars where you would not want a race spoiled over a $2 part not being changed.

- Ferrari in their mechanical assemblies do not use cheap parts. The bolts are high grade, the castings well made, and the machining is quite good. These are however finely tuned high performance machines so you give up longevity for performance. This explains why certain parts have shorter lives than others.

In the end if you treat a Ferrari like a normal car and only change parts on an as needed basis then it is not terribly expensive to own. The problem is that you will be driving an expensive hand grenade whose pin could fall out at any time.

BTW I still don't get the sandwitch, Rolex, and mansion comparisions but this has been my experiences from a guy who wrenches himself, is involved in automotive manufacturing, and tries to make sense of the expenditures involved.

 

Rob...very good point.

You mentioned "castings". A very difficult, and expensive process is making engine block castings from Aluminum. 95% of auto manufactureres (Toyota, GM, VW etc..) injection-cast their engine block castings. This basically means that a large mold, and injection press are used to manufacture a single casting. The injection and cooling process would take approx 10 minutes. Afterwards, the rough casting will go to the machine shop for final precise machining, then assembly afterwards.

Ferrari still manufactures their aluminum engine blocks by hand. They assemble sand cast molds and inserts, and then slowly pour the liquid aluminum into the mold. After the aluminum is cooled, the mold is then fully dissassembled, and the rough block is carefully cleaned and the inserts removed, then finally the mold can be opened to reveal the block. After, the rough block will be sent to the machine shop for final machining using the same CNC processes as Toyota GM etc...

The sand cast mold process probably takes 1-2 hours (Ferrari) as opposed to the injection process (10 minutes) with the other OEM companies. I assume that Ferrari uses the slow sand cast process for all the other aluminum components. (Heads, covers, housings etc..)

 

This may answer some of those questions in regards to engine build process and tolerances.

http://www.streetfire.net/video/ultimate-factories-ferrari_713772.htm


As for the Maserati and Ferrari comparisons I'm still on the fence in regards to the "engine build process". Please note all I say is in the engine build process and not other components. Maserati guys pay the same labor and some parts as the Ferrari guys.
I am presuming the finished product engine is all hand created and hand build in the Ferrari factory with the same tolerances. That was what I read and was told. Maserati doesnt build theior own engines.
Why does a full rebuild need to be done on a 2004 or newer Ferrari engine? ... unless i'm wrong with this.
And I have yet to hear about a full engine rebuild on a 2004 or newer Maserati engine.

Note: Alex please do not call me tomorrow for this service... I'm still moonlighting in McD on week nights to pay for the the water pump and heater core repair.

 

I haven't heard of a rebuild needed on a 2004 or newer Ferrari engine either? Unless abused or broken, they shouldn't need it...

 

This article discusses some of the reasons Ferraris cost so much to service:

http://www.ferraris-online.com/Articles/SCM_0006.html

This is from the perspective of painting the car, but the pain is similar in other areas.

 

I was hungry and on mls dot ca at the time .... Seemed to be a good analogy at the time.

Here is another one for you....what is the difference between granite from home depot made in turkey and the granite in Italy from a specialty shop ?

 

Add the multiplier effect of 13 yrs now ...that article was written in 2000