I need prayers about Engine Out Service on my Ferrari.

by james_woods 65 Replies latest jw friends

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  james_woods

  The fact really is that all cars are becoming more and more expensive to repair.

  I think this is a deliberate effort on the part of the manufacturers to force obsolesence which makes people but new cars.

  Is it reasonable to think that a catalytic converter on a chep Honda really cost them $1200 when they made the car? That is what they charge for a replacement now - and you cannot drive the car without replacing it, at least not legally.

  Maybe we should ask JWN to pray for all car owners, not just the Ferrari owners.
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  BluePill2

  james_woods, I love the idea that an apostate like you was blessed with such a beauty. What a sexy car!!!

  I can confirm your idea. I used to work for Mercedes-Benz and we calculated that if you would buy every single part of the car through After-Sales (or the spare part system) the same car would cost you 4 x the original price. This is how we would measure prices with other manufacturers. A Lexus would cost the owner almost 7 x the original price. Some manufacturers make money on the original new car, some later down the road (no pun intended)

  I will pray to the "Beautiful car gods" for you!
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  moshe

  Pulling a motor brings back memories-- I think I am gonna revisit the notion of getting a VW beetle , just like I used to own - I have the time to fix one up now- still have the 2 inch scar on my right forearm from the last time I pulled the motor out of my last VW, a '69- THIS time I'll have the right kind of hydraulic lift jack. Some guys run what is called a Rat Rod, in the local oldies car club down the street from me.- and only driven by retirees on sunny days.

  
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  BluePill2

  Just to avoid some confusion here: it is not a "simple formula" where: spare parts x 4 original part costs. Some spare parts are cheaper than the original, produced on the serial line, others are even more expensive to produce. This is also due to the fact that car manufacturers have to store some parts (due to legal obligations) and others are outsourced to third party factories and produced as need arises.

  Pretty complicated stuff.

  In your case Ferrari has either to look-up if the parts are in some stock (warehousing = real estate space = expensive), or have to be hand made at the factory or have to be ordered by some contractor. Depending on shipping etc. this can be expensive or even cheaper than the original.
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  james_woods

  I can confirm your idea. I used to work for Mercedes-Benz and we calculated that if you would buy every single part of the car through After-Sales (or the spare part system) the same car would cost you 4 x the original price. This is how we would measure prices with other manufacturers. A Lexus would cost the owner almost 7 x the original price.

  From actual experience, I would guess that a Ferrari or Rolls-Royce would run closer to 25 x or more - and remember, that is just the parts, and does not include the labor to put it together. Many in the Ferrari community have complained that the V8 cars starting with the 355 will never be valuable enough to warrant the cost of restoration.

  One bright spot in this may be the last generation of air-cooled Porsche 911s - the 993. I have a 1996 993 Targa which is my daily driver and plan to just keep it forever and keep rebuilding it as needed. It has 130,000 miles now and is still going strong after an engine top overhaul at 90,000 miles.

  There are enough of these around to ensure a reasonable parts supply for probably the next 20 years.
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  JeffT

  James, just consider this divine approval to buy a new car.
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  james_woods

  James does not want a new car.

  James likes old cars.
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  Razziel

  James, is it possible to remove cam covers or the front shroud to observe the condition of the cam belts? All of the other maintenance items you listed are done for convenience while everything is exposed.
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  Razziel

  I own a '94 Lexus SC400, which also has cam belts as opposed to chains. It's not as labor intensive as yours but I can remove a small portion of the front cover and observe the cam belts for signs of dry rot and cracking.
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  james_woods

  No, Razziel - the front cover is only a couple of inches from the firewall behind the seats.

  Besides, you simply cannot "inspect" the timing belts visually (or any other way that I know of) to decide if they need changing.

  What is thought to happen is that on cars not driven often, they will take a "set" where they go over the pulleys and this eventually breaks the structure down so that they fail catastrophically at some unknown point. They do not "wear out" like tires - if they go, they go all at once.

  I guess I should mention that many owners have speculated that the change interval was made extremely low by Ferrari (it is five years or 30,000 miles) just to increase service revenues and to try to assure that belt failures would be rare on these expensive engines. Other cars that use similar belts go 100,000 miles before changing them. Most Ferraris are not driven 30,000 miles in five years, so it is really a time limit on these cars in most cases.

  Of course, expensive or not, no reasonable Ferrari owner wants to risk his engine over this.

  It is said that when you buy a Ferrari, you are buying the engine - and you get the rest of the car for free.