Warranty Question (Cats)

Fed guideline takes precedence, but it seems FNA usually denies claims until you get a lawyer to give them a call. Try being nice to dealer, make sure any and all corrospondance is in writing including the repair claim and reason for denial. If they deny claim, get a lawyer involved if you so choose. Have heard your type of situation many times and some got suckered into paying for the repair. If you do pay, you still have legal recourse to sue FNA to recoup financial losses under US law.

 

In Ca the Ca law applies. If you are 7 years +1 Mo past the date of original sale you are SOL.

 

What is important is what the documentation that came with the car says; if it was originally delivered out of Ca it won't have Ca's time-period, necessarily.

Check the original documents carefully. My late 1995 F355 came with a warranty book that said 8 yrs/80,000 miles; Ferrari said it was a misprint, but honored it anyway.

I talked directly with FNA's Warranty Director to get the issue resolved. Good guy, but I think he has since moved on.

Good luck. If warranty does not cover, you can get nice SS low flow cats in the aftermarket for 1/4 of Ferrari's price.

 

check in the service manual. Different components have different covereage.
Some are 7/70 some are 8/80.
I got cats covered on a clients 1999, 360 about 9 months ago, so it is worth a shot.
But before you go to the dealer, make sure it is the cat and not the rear O2 which is what is measuring the cat.
The ecu measures the difference between the front O2 and rear O2 to determine is the cat is working, a bad O2 sensor with no elect fault will trigger a cat code. Simple test ( if your mechanical) swap left and right side sensors and see if the fault code switches sides.
If you have no luck with this or the dealer, PM me and I will give you a quote for the repair.
Good luck

 

Could also be a bad pre-cat O2 sensor too...mine had a bad heater...which presumably kept the car from going into closed loop sooner, and killed the right side cat. I bought some low miles used ones, but Brian Crall also suggests these folks to rebuild your factory cats:
http://www.millercat.com/index.html They will cut them open, install new cores, and weld them back up. Not sure of the exact cost, but probably less than $400 each.

 

I had this problem on my 355. It's generally the cat ECU that goes out, not the cat itself. The cat ECU's have a bad habit of cracking around the case and allowing moisture in. Then the slow down light comes on. Both mine were replaced under the Federal warranty.

Ray

 

Simple fix for cat ecu that has let water in is to stick it in a warm place for a while to evaporate the moisture then seal it again with epoxy. You have 2 cat ecu's, try swapping them to see if the fault changes banks.

 

Actually, there should be three. There are newer, updated cat ECU's. They are the ones used on the 360 and can be identified by a green dot painted on them. My car had them replaced back in 2003 or 2004, at the previous owner's expense.

 

Hmmm, what does the 3rd one connect to, the bypass cats?