Interesting take on Ferrari ownership

bigbob

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Most of his gripes are with the dealer by the sounds of it not Ferrari. Some seem justified especially if they had the car 4 weeks to change the wheels around. Why he didn’t just go somewhere else I don’t know.

The trickle charger thing though is just ** design (same as McLaren apparently) If you can’t park your car at the airport for a 2 week holiday it’s a piece of **.
Plenty of people with Astons and Porsches need trickle chargers and Maserati owners know too well about the benefits they bring. I just accept it with my ageing GranTurismo which is still on the factory battery at 11 years old.

I think part of the issue is what usage you will make of the car. I know people do use these sort of cars as their only vehicle but it is rare and most would not want to park it at the airport. They will take another car with a bigger boot or more likely be driven by an airline provided car. So when you make the airport point to the dealer it immediately puts you in the cheap seats in their minds.
 

Oneball

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11,075
Plenty of people with Astons and Porsches need trickle chargers and Maserati owners know too well about the benefits they bring. I just accept it with my ageing GranTurismo which is still on the factory battery at 11 years old.

I think part of the issue is what usage you will make of the car. I know people do use these sort of cars as their only vehicle but it is rare and most would not want to park it at the airport. They will take another car with a bigger boot or more likely be driven by an airline provided car. So when you make the airport point to the dealer it immediately puts you in the cheap seats in their minds.

Airport was just an example. If your car won’t last two weeks it has a fault. (Although in McLarens it seems well documented that it’s the **** design). In most instances with our sort of cars there will one of three things wrong: Faulty car battery, faulty tracker/alarm battery or an electronic module isn’t going to sleep. I’ve had them all, I’ve fixed them all and I’ve never owned a car that wouldn’t start after a couple of weeks. Leaving it over winter is different. If his wouldn’t last a week (which I think is what he said) then it’s clearly faulty.
 

sionie1

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1,310
Why would they? It’s a 10 year old used car, I don’t suppose they particularly care
Possibly because he has a social media following and a broad platform for sharing his experience. Like him or not he does have some clout in the social media world. Ferrari aren't afraid to use their legal team or blacklist people when they want to.
 

bigbob

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8,952
Airport was just an example. If your car won’t last two weeks it has a fault. (Although in McLarens it seems well documented that it’s the **** design). In most instances with our sort of cars there will one of three things wrong: Faulty car battery, faulty tracker/alarm battery or an electronic module isn’t going to sleep. I’ve had them all, I’ve fixed them all and I’ve never owned a car that wouldn’t start after a couple of weeks. Leaving it over winter is different. If his wouldn’t last a week (which I think is what he said) then it’s clearly faulty.
I do agree with the generality of the two week point and it is unacceptable. Trying to understand it, though, I do wonder if it is often caused by people who live in cities doing 15 minute runs regularly and then a quick drive to the airport - or wherever - and ultimately the battery cannot cope due to the number of small runs and then sitting for a while.

Back in my day it was easy to blame Concorde at LHR for setting all the alarms off every day but I guess it is different now!
 

Oneball

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11,075
I do agree with the generality of the two week point and it is unacceptable. Trying to understand it, though, I do wonder if it is often caused by people who live in cities doing 15 minute runs regularly and then a quick drive to the airport - or wherever - and ultimately the battery cannot cope due to the number of small runs and then sitting for a while.

Back in my day it was easy to blame Concorde at LHR for setting all the alarms off every day but I guess it is different now!

Yep, I’m terrible for that. Luckily my Merc has a backup battery or it wouldn’t start half the time.
 

lifes2short

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5,821
simply don't understand the mentality of some of the opinions here, it doesn't really matter if you've bought a normal sh1t box daily or a super car, why should you swallow faults regardless of how trivial simply because "its a Ferrari", if anything i would be extremely p1ssed if shelling out that sort of dosh, we don't complain enough and/or afraid to complain, why is it acceptable to bend over and take it, dealers should be taken to task when getting sh1t customer service and clearly taking the p1ss
 

drellis

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795
It's not the item stopping working that really gets me , it's poor customer service and getting fobbed off, and that would apply if I bought a new high end car be it a dacia or ferrari.
Any car over 5 years ( bar maybe a honda) I'd expect it to go wrong sometimes
 

Ewan

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6,757
In my world of work, the reality is that the more expensive and big the boat, the more it will go wrong and the more maintenance it will need. If you spend £1m on one, for example, expect 10% annual running costs. If you think that by spending £1m gets you a “perfect” boat that will be without faults, you’re in for a rude awakening. And it’s not because they are badly built, it’s just that when you pound through seas at 30 knots, there’s a lot of banging about and things move.
My point is purely that perfection simply is not possible, and faults will crop up. Even on a Ferrari. That’s life.
 

Phil H

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4,107
Perfection is often possible, albeit at a price, and I suspect the majority of folk accept that the less you pay the greater the risk of failure. However, the measure of an organisation is the way in which it addresses issues that do occur, and the problem these days is that the balance sheet often carries more weight than a company's reputation, hence the dubious euphemism of 'managing customer expectations'.

Sir Henry Royce said "The quality remains long after the price is forgotten"; that's something to think about when you start hitting six-figure prices, even for used cars.
 
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Guy

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2,000
An amusing read this thread! I remember that after about 50 German cars (mostly mainly faultless, especially those built in 90s and early 00s) and a long conversation with Richard Grace, I bought my first Italian car, a 14k mile 4 year old QPV GT S from JCT main dealer. During the first weekend I noted a warning light and anxiously pulled over and called JCT service. I told them of the impending disaster and after a momentary pause came the telling retort; just the one light sir?! Of course I have not looked back and really enjoy the driving pleasures of Maseratis and now a Ferrari but accept they prioritise differently. The suspension components look to built for high precision and lightness. Strong enough but not over engineered so need more maintenance. I will continue to value a gorgeous Pininfarina body over a high quality window switch and give me thick aromatic nappa leather over the flawless plastic leather the Germans now use. I often think that our cars (especially Ferrari) suffer a worse reputation because they are under used and nothing mechanical benefits from sitting around. I can't be bothered to watch another youtuber but bet the 10 year old 430 featured has done less than 4000 miles a year......
 

MrMickS

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3,951
I saw that video, and another one that appears to have disappeared that moaned about the running costs, after placing the deposit on my California. I dismissed them as mostly whining.

Build quality seems ok to me. Its better put together than a lot of cars I've owned in the past. There are the sticky buttons but I expected that. I have done a few miles and come across one issue so far. A CEL due to a blockage in some of the channels in the exhaust manifold. Still trying to find out what the likely cause of that was. Ferrari have changed the design of the part to prevent it happening again I'm told. We shall see.