355 experiences / running costs / advice sought
Discussion
Hi
I wanted to find out what owners have experienced about their 355's since buying the model ?
1 ) e.g costs - has the car been reliable ? or have certain items costs more than anticipated ?
2 ) Is it worth going to main dealer or ind ? e.g verdi ?
3 ) Whats the overall driving experience ?
e.g can the car be used as a day to day car to and from work and stuck in traffic / long journeys (circa 100 miles)regardless of gearbox e.g stick / F1
or is the car a "sunday car" e.g only to used on a few days a week?
4) Finally is there a year thats worth looking at over other years of manufacture ? e.g is there an improved injection system over previous models as an example which can affect service costs ?
many thanks in advance for taking the time out to answer these questions.
Pete
I wanted to find out what owners have experienced about their 355's since buying the model ?
1 ) e.g costs - has the car been reliable ? or have certain items costs more than anticipated ?
2 ) Is it worth going to main dealer or ind ? e.g verdi ?
3 ) Whats the overall driving experience ?
e.g can the car be used as a day to day car to and from work and stuck in traffic / long journeys (circa 100 miles)regardless of gearbox e.g stick / F1
or is the car a "sunday car" e.g only to used on a few days a week?
4) Finally is there a year thats worth looking at over other years of manufacture ? e.g is there an improved injection system over previous models as an example which can affect service costs ?
many thanks in advance for taking the time out to answer these questions.
Pete
Pete,
i will post various comments from Ferrarichat where these points have been discussed at length, hope they help.
There are tons of threads in the archives to help. Come on over and say hello.
Rgds
Tony
costs will vary but factor in a cambelt service every 3 years[roughly £2k]. My car was in the official dealership till last year when i switched to Verdi. I have found him to be spot on and very helpful.
Mileage is a killer on residuals, no question. I think the car's up to use as a daily driver - certainly the manual- but for me parking and security are always an issue. My typical annual mileage is 4.5k.
It's said that manifold and valve guide issues were ironed out in post '98 cars but this is open to debate. A PPI is a MUST , as is a full service history.
------------------------------------------------------
The Ferrari F355 has two different engine packages (OBDIO-I=95 and OBDIO-II=96-99), and three different brake packages (95, 96-97, and 98-99). In street braking, there is not much difference in the braking setup and response; and for track use all brake packages should have a set of pads that are more tollerent of heat.
When F1 became available in ?96 or 97? it arrived with an uprated slave cylinder in the clutch throwout system. Like the F348s the clutch (and associated parts) is easy to change even if the parts are expensive. If you have to change anything in the clutch, do the whole thing and use the uprated slave cylinder. Its smoother, lighter, and ever so slightly faster.
The 95 engine has a little more HP and TQ (5 HP and 2-3 lb-ft) from a slightly richer mixture allowed by the OBDIO-I emissions specification. All engines will have header issues if tracked regularly, and the 95 modle year is more affected than later. There is a uprated materials specification if/when header replacement is required. Even with the uprated materials, challenge cars replace the headers yearly. With indifferent street use headers have gone as far as 103,000 miles without failure. The hydraulic pump of the F1 cars saps some power from the engine but performance improves through the faster gear changes available through computer controlled timing of the events. The 360 F1 system is miles ahead in smoothness especially after 2001.
Engines up through the 98 model year can be affected by a valve guide issue detected in 95 based on the 94 348 Challenge cars where the factory changed the vavle guide specification from <some> bronze to sintered steel. In general, if the engine has not run into the valve guide issue by the time it has 20,000 miles it will likely not run into the issue.
The suspension system is excellent, with minor issues relating to the computer controlled shoch absorbers (connector corrosion). The oversteer/understeer relationship is easily manipulated with rear ride height (Google on: Ride couple distribution). The factory specs are just fine for street and even agressive track driving on street tires. I get 9 K miles on a set of max performance street tires where 1,500 of those miles occur on a race track with factory specs. Both front tires and both rear tires turn from treaded tires to slicks within 100 miles of each other. Adding camber speeds up the chassis but beware of making the car faster than the driver. Adding toe calms the car under steady state straight line operation and under braking. Running toe-out is only for track use. The suspension is easily dialed into the driver preference as long as the driver known which direction he want the cars response to move towards. If you lower the car be aware of a high speed heavy braking issue at the front suspension. Staying at the <already> factory ride heights (4.2" of ground clearance) is a good bet and prevents this high speed braking issue.
If you want to use r-compound tires or racing slicks, find the challenge specifications for alignment, but don't lower the car unless you also add the challenge spring and shock package. For noon-agressive track use, r-compounds and slicks work pretty well with the factory alignments.
The alignment system (shims) works so well that if you like agressive track driving and calm street driving, get the car sorted on the track first, and them get it aligned back to factory specs on an alignment gig. The difference between the shim thickness can be measured, and when you get to the trank, loosen a bolt, insert the required shims (8 times) and go to town. At the end of the day remove the shims, and presto you are back at street alignment. You will also get most of the toe change desired (out at track and in on the street) with this change as a side bonus.
I dislike the power assist for the steering and prefer the 348 feel of the steering wheel, but I rate this as a very minor issue.
Cars that are used hard over irregular surfaces will see minor paint spider webbing on the rear flying butress (C-piller) as evidence of hard use.
The plastic parts in the interior need to be kept away from Armoural and similar plastic protectants--it turns the plastic parts into a gooy mess.
The leather <especially> needs to be protected from drying out. Feeding the leather once every couple of months or every time you drive for any distance with the windows down; and avoiding letting the car sit in sunlight help a lot. The leather is higher in quality than <say> a C5 Vette, but less tollerant of lack of care.
Overall, the engine internals, the transmission, suspensions and brakes are basically unbreakable. There are no long term issues with the paint and exterior materials.
With the age of these cars approaching 10 years (95) and only the 98s and 99s still under the 8-year emissions warentee, the potential buyer is ever more dependent upon a high quality PPI than before. These are wonderful high performance machines that can take a lot of abuse (or designed for use) without fail. The engine has a big broad torque curve that is readily accessible and the sound at RedLine is simply out of this world. When the tail drifts out in a 100 MPH sweeper, you dial in a touch of steering and add throttle, and grin all the way to the next braking zone. However, like an Italian mistress, they are demanding upon your time and wallet. Choose wisely.
------------------------------------------------------
http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45528
------------------------------------------------------
i will post various comments from Ferrarichat where these points have been discussed at length, hope they help.
There are tons of threads in the archives to help. Come on over and say hello. Rgds
Tony
costs will vary but factor in a cambelt service every 3 years[roughly £2k]. My car was in the official dealership till last year when i switched to Verdi. I have found him to be spot on and very helpful.
Mileage is a killer on residuals, no question. I think the car's up to use as a daily driver - certainly the manual- but for me parking and security are always an issue. My typical annual mileage is 4.5k.
It's said that manifold and valve guide issues were ironed out in post '98 cars but this is open to debate. A PPI is a MUST , as is a full service history.
------------------------------------------------------
The Ferrari F355 has two different engine packages (OBDIO-I=95 and OBDIO-II=96-99), and three different brake packages (95, 96-97, and 98-99). In street braking, there is not much difference in the braking setup and response; and for track use all brake packages should have a set of pads that are more tollerent of heat.
When F1 became available in ?96 or 97? it arrived with an uprated slave cylinder in the clutch throwout system. Like the F348s the clutch (and associated parts) is easy to change even if the parts are expensive. If you have to change anything in the clutch, do the whole thing and use the uprated slave cylinder. Its smoother, lighter, and ever so slightly faster.
The 95 engine has a little more HP and TQ (5 HP and 2-3 lb-ft) from a slightly richer mixture allowed by the OBDIO-I emissions specification. All engines will have header issues if tracked regularly, and the 95 modle year is more affected than later. There is a uprated materials specification if/when header replacement is required. Even with the uprated materials, challenge cars replace the headers yearly. With indifferent street use headers have gone as far as 103,000 miles without failure. The hydraulic pump of the F1 cars saps some power from the engine but performance improves through the faster gear changes available through computer controlled timing of the events. The 360 F1 system is miles ahead in smoothness especially after 2001.
Engines up through the 98 model year can be affected by a valve guide issue detected in 95 based on the 94 348 Challenge cars where the factory changed the vavle guide specification from <some> bronze to sintered steel. In general, if the engine has not run into the valve guide issue by the time it has 20,000 miles it will likely not run into the issue.
The suspension system is excellent, with minor issues relating to the computer controlled shoch absorbers (connector corrosion). The oversteer/understeer relationship is easily manipulated with rear ride height (Google on: Ride couple distribution). The factory specs are just fine for street and even agressive track driving on street tires. I get 9 K miles on a set of max performance street tires where 1,500 of those miles occur on a race track with factory specs. Both front tires and both rear tires turn from treaded tires to slicks within 100 miles of each other. Adding camber speeds up the chassis but beware of making the car faster than the driver. Adding toe calms the car under steady state straight line operation and under braking. Running toe-out is only for track use. The suspension is easily dialed into the driver preference as long as the driver known which direction he want the cars response to move towards. If you lower the car be aware of a high speed heavy braking issue at the front suspension. Staying at the <already> factory ride heights (4.2" of ground clearance) is a good bet and prevents this high speed braking issue.
If you want to use r-compound tires or racing slicks, find the challenge specifications for alignment, but don't lower the car unless you also add the challenge spring and shock package. For noon-agressive track use, r-compounds and slicks work pretty well with the factory alignments.
The alignment system (shims) works so well that if you like agressive track driving and calm street driving, get the car sorted on the track first, and them get it aligned back to factory specs on an alignment gig. The difference between the shim thickness can be measured, and when you get to the trank, loosen a bolt, insert the required shims (8 times) and go to town. At the end of the day remove the shims, and presto you are back at street alignment. You will also get most of the toe change desired (out at track and in on the street) with this change as a side bonus.
I dislike the power assist for the steering and prefer the 348 feel of the steering wheel, but I rate this as a very minor issue.
Cars that are used hard over irregular surfaces will see minor paint spider webbing on the rear flying butress (C-piller) as evidence of hard use.
The plastic parts in the interior need to be kept away from Armoural and similar plastic protectants--it turns the plastic parts into a gooy mess.
The leather <especially> needs to be protected from drying out. Feeding the leather once every couple of months or every time you drive for any distance with the windows down; and avoiding letting the car sit in sunlight help a lot. The leather is higher in quality than <say> a C5 Vette, but less tollerant of lack of care.
Overall, the engine internals, the transmission, suspensions and brakes are basically unbreakable. There are no long term issues with the paint and exterior materials.
With the age of these cars approaching 10 years (95) and only the 98s and 99s still under the 8-year emissions warentee, the potential buyer is ever more dependent upon a high quality PPI than before. These are wonderful high performance machines that can take a lot of abuse (or designed for use) without fail. The engine has a big broad torque curve that is readily accessible and the sound at RedLine is simply out of this world. When the tail drifts out in a 100 MPH sweeper, you dial in a touch of steering and add throttle, and grin all the way to the next braking zone. However, like an Italian mistress, they are demanding upon your time and wallet. Choose wisely.
------------------------------------------------------
http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45528
------------------------------------------------------
Pete
here's some notes I put together a while ago for somebody buying
Where to Buy
Official Dealers, regretfully some are just as useless as any other Marque! I bought my 355 from Meridien Modena in Lyndhurst for one reason which I'll go into later, be aware that some dealers charge much more than others for a car of the same spec
Specialists, I've dealt with Talacrest (www.racecar.co.uk/talacrest/index.htm) in Egham and Kent High Performance (www.theferraricentre.co.uk/) in Maidstone, bought my 328 from KHPC and had it serviced at Talacrest some very good guys there who know their stuff and are enthusiastic about the cars. Others that have a good reputation are Nick Cartwright Sports Cars and Foskers.
Privately, As in any other car market you'll get it cheaper but lacking the dealer facilities, without doubt if you go this route you MUST have the car inspected by a specialist before you buy, there's some ropey cars out there some of which have been rebuilt from write offs! Good place to look for private sales is www.ferrariownersclub.co.uk where the for sales section is a free access area.
Warranty
As I said earlier I bought mine from an official dealer because I wanted a good warranty and it paid for itself when it covered a £5k bill in April 02!, however the renewal cost in May was too high so I didn't renew, 6 weeks later I put a conrod through the block!, I subsequently found out there was another warranty I could have had (and now have) that is cheaper and better!.
All official dealers will sell you a car with Formula (1) warranty included, this covers engine, gearbox, electrics etc however there is a £10k limit to any individual failure, an new engine will cost you around £30k. When I asked to renew it they wanted £2,100 for Formula (2) for another year which was still limited to £10k but excluded all the electrics inc ECU etc (circa £5k for a new one!). If you buy privately or from a specialist and the car is under 6 years old at inception you can get a factory warranty that is unlimited for two years for £1,400 inc vat, you have to have a dealer check the car and that costs around £300 and it must have a genuine official dealer stamp on all the services. Obviously Specialists can offer third party warranty. Personally I wouldn't have one without a warranty that you know you can rely on.
F1 Gearboxes/Clutch
The 355 F1's are renowned for excessive clutch wear, the dealer will tell you that it's because people don't drive them properly and treat it like an Auto but history has shown that 3.5k miles out of an F1 clutch is good going!, fortunately it's only a £500 job to change it (£350 parts) however I would be inclined to go for the manual for the above and the following..... the general view being that the F1 is good for the track but almost dangerous on the road, Tiff Needell showed a scenario on Top Gear a few years back, you start to pull out of a junction, realise there's an Artic coming towards you, you need to reverse, stop car, press Neutral button on dash,, move lever to reverse, release handbrake, somewhere in there the truck has hit you!.
General
Earlier F355's (Changed around early1996 and have Bosch Motronic 2.7 ECU) are known to have problems with valve guides and bore wear, easy to identify as they have no airbags and on the induction system the pipes from the air filters go straight in to the air intake castings, the later cars (Bosch 5.2) have a convoluted arrangement to improve emissions and also have some tricks to beat the drive by noise restrictions, the later ones allegedly have 5 BHP less
Also Cats are expensive they've stopped making the ceramic ones which lasted about 20k miles and replaced them with a Metallic one, All of them suffer from failed Exhaust Manifolds, £1,400 each new but can get rebuilt ones for £600, maybe worth looking one htat has new Manifolds and Cats.
BTW, it's worth joining the Owners club (about £88 a year) they organise loads of things from trackdays to Concours's and very good magazines/ newsletters and discounts on Insurance
Insurance on a limited mileage policy is cheap (£800 a year for 5k miles) and includes trackday cover albeit with a fairly large excess these days.
For Servicing, budget around £1,200 per year average
here's some notes I put together a while ago for somebody buying
Where to Buy
Official Dealers, regretfully some are just as useless as any other Marque! I bought my 355 from Meridien Modena in Lyndhurst for one reason which I'll go into later, be aware that some dealers charge much more than others for a car of the same spec
Specialists, I've dealt with Talacrest (www.racecar.co.uk/talacrest/index.htm) in Egham and Kent High Performance (www.theferraricentre.co.uk/) in Maidstone, bought my 328 from KHPC and had it serviced at Talacrest some very good guys there who know their stuff and are enthusiastic about the cars. Others that have a good reputation are Nick Cartwright Sports Cars and Foskers.
Privately, As in any other car market you'll get it cheaper but lacking the dealer facilities, without doubt if you go this route you MUST have the car inspected by a specialist before you buy, there's some ropey cars out there some of which have been rebuilt from write offs! Good place to look for private sales is www.ferrariownersclub.co.uk where the for sales section is a free access area.
Warranty
As I said earlier I bought mine from an official dealer because I wanted a good warranty and it paid for itself when it covered a £5k bill in April 02!, however the renewal cost in May was too high so I didn't renew, 6 weeks later I put a conrod through the block!, I subsequently found out there was another warranty I could have had (and now have) that is cheaper and better!.
All official dealers will sell you a car with Formula (1) warranty included, this covers engine, gearbox, electrics etc however there is a £10k limit to any individual failure, an new engine will cost you around £30k. When I asked to renew it they wanted £2,100 for Formula (2) for another year which was still limited to £10k but excluded all the electrics inc ECU etc (circa £5k for a new one!). If you buy privately or from a specialist and the car is under 6 years old at inception you can get a factory warranty that is unlimited for two years for £1,400 inc vat, you have to have a dealer check the car and that costs around £300 and it must have a genuine official dealer stamp on all the services. Obviously Specialists can offer third party warranty. Personally I wouldn't have one without a warranty that you know you can rely on.
F1 Gearboxes/Clutch
The 355 F1's are renowned for excessive clutch wear, the dealer will tell you that it's because people don't drive them properly and treat it like an Auto but history has shown that 3.5k miles out of an F1 clutch is good going!, fortunately it's only a £500 job to change it (£350 parts) however I would be inclined to go for the manual for the above and the following..... the general view being that the F1 is good for the track but almost dangerous on the road, Tiff Needell showed a scenario on Top Gear a few years back, you start to pull out of a junction, realise there's an Artic coming towards you, you need to reverse, stop car, press Neutral button on dash,, move lever to reverse, release handbrake, somewhere in there the truck has hit you!.
General
Earlier F355's (Changed around early1996 and have Bosch Motronic 2.7 ECU) are known to have problems with valve guides and bore wear, easy to identify as they have no airbags and on the induction system the pipes from the air filters go straight in to the air intake castings, the later cars (Bosch 5.2) have a convoluted arrangement to improve emissions and also have some tricks to beat the drive by noise restrictions, the later ones allegedly have 5 BHP less
Also Cats are expensive they've stopped making the ceramic ones which lasted about 20k miles and replaced them with a Metallic one, All of them suffer from failed Exhaust Manifolds, £1,400 each new but can get rebuilt ones for £600, maybe worth looking one htat has new Manifolds and Cats.
BTW, it's worth joining the Owners club (about £88 a year) they organise loads of things from trackdays to Concours's and very good magazines/ newsletters and discounts on Insurance
Insurance on a limited mileage policy is cheap (£800 a year for 5k miles) and includes trackday cover albeit with a fairly large excess these days.
For Servicing, budget around £1,200 per year average
I'l be brief initially but am back in the UK next week so happy to answer emails etc. for more detail.
1 ) genrally it's reliable, but you can get headaches as with any car. Selected right, I reckon you should get something very solid.
2 ) If the main dealers have what you want at the price you wish to pay, then yes (there aren't many round if you're fussy about spec). But I would, knowing what I know now, always use the indies. Whatever you buy, and wherever from, get an independent inspection done.
3 ) Awesome. It can be used as a day to day car but mileage may hurt value (I don't care so much on this mind!). Long journeys are easy and very comfortable. I put 5.5k miles on mine over just under 4mths in Europe, and a few times had 10hrs behind the wheel before a serious stop over.
4) Usual thing with these sorts of car - the later the better typically. Though the earlier cars did have more power (allegedly).
Buy one. You won't regret it.
1 ) genrally it's reliable, but you can get headaches as with any car. Selected right, I reckon you should get something very solid.
2 ) If the main dealers have what you want at the price you wish to pay, then yes (there aren't many round if you're fussy about spec). But I would, knowing what I know now, always use the indies. Whatever you buy, and wherever from, get an independent inspection done.
3 ) Awesome. It can be used as a day to day car but mileage may hurt value (I don't care so much on this mind!). Long journeys are easy and very comfortable. I put 5.5k miles on mine over just under 4mths in Europe, and a few times had 10hrs behind the wheel before a serious stop over.
4) Usual thing with these sorts of car - the later the better typically. Though the earlier cars did have more power (allegedly).
Buy one. You won't regret it.
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