Scary Halloween Ferrari Costs

It is Halloween and I wanted to do something scary so here is a list with a short description of all my Ferrari expenditures in the past 11 months and approximately 2500 miles worth of driving. I realize it does not exactly match my cost of ownership on the side of this page as I had forgotten some items.

$35 on the URL www.oneyearwithaferrari.com

$150 membership dues in the Ferrari Club of America

$180 on the PPI

$500 in loan fees

$44 for Ferrari valve caps which I have never put on the car

$275 for a replacement ashtray. I was able to sell parts of the old ashtray but the lid was lost in
shipping so I only made $40.

$90 for fancy Ferrari driving shoes which match the car

$249 for a camera to make movies of the car

$152 for a camera mount so the camera won’t flop around the car

$499 for a ProDrive high performance driving course

$1372 to replace the catalytic converter ecus, no more “SLOW DOWN” ligts

$350 for some fancy tiles for our garage, can’t have the Ferrari sitting on concrete

$315 for the RTGT track day

$100 for interior parts

$150 for stuff to fix sticky interior parts

$300 for the steering column cover I ruined trying to degooify it

$1462 to fix the radiator

$375 for the inn in Walla Walla

$450 for food in Walla Walla

$315 for the 2nd RTGT Track Day

$8692 for the valve job and service (OUCH)

$3971 in loan payments

$1307 in insurance payments

$920 in gas

$70 to renew the URL www.oneyearwithaferrari.com for two more years :)

No more car problems

The car is back. The catalytic converter is fine, turned out the problem was wiring. As I drove it home I hatched a plan. Give the 911 to Barb and spend two years with the Ferrari with the hope that next year brings more driving and less maintenance.

Is a Ferrari a cure for a mid life crisis? (revisisted)

In my last month of Ferrari ownership is has occurred to me that while I knew what it was about my life I wanted to change I do not know and cannot clearly articulate what outcome I am seeking. I can describe the problems, the things I am unhappy with, but I cannot, clearly, describe how I would like them to be. I have also come to understand that while the act of deciding to buy a Ferrari, buying it, and some of the experiences I had with it over the course of the year were helpful towards my goal of self betterment the car as a physical entity was not. If anything it is getting in the way. Instead of focusing my energy on exactly identifying the underlying, structural components of my life, my self, which I wanted to modify I focused on activities surrounding a car. Granted, I wanted to change my life to one where having a Ferrari and enjoying the Ferrari lifestyle was a component but the car alone was not enough to affect structural change. The Ferrari was supposed to be a prop to help me change and initially it was but quickly it became an anchor in a transitional state.

Possibly the best part of my one year with a Ferrari was my one month without the car. During this month I reaped the benefit of having bought and driven the car but I did not have it underfoot on a daily basis. I did not need to worry about washing it or driving it and could spend more time focused on writing this book and analyzing my progress. I did not expect the Ferrari to solve any of the issues I was seeking to address through the process of buying it. I did expect it to cause me to be different or to be a constant reminder of what I was trying to do. Like a tattoo or dying my hair a funny color. I did not expect it to become a hindrance to my progress.
Now I find myself at a phase where quiet introspection is more valuable to my goal of changing my life than activities focused on the Ferrari. How does the car get in the way? I feel obligated to drive it. To do things with it.

I am not complaining. I am glad I bought the car and have no regrets. However, for my purposes six months with a Ferrari may have been equally as valuable.

Ferrari back in shop

It is possible, not probable but possible that I will be unable to sell the car as it will never be completely done being serviced. When driving it over the weekend the check engine light went on. I expected there would be an issue or two after the engine being out of the car for a month so I was not surprised or worried. I dropped the car off at RTGT this morning. The error had to do with the catalytic converters. Hopefully it was just a loose connection. Will find out tomorrow.

Fixing the gooey door handle

I do not believe there is any one set of experiences which can be definitively called the Ferrari experience. While I think there are experiences and sensations which are universal or nearly universal for Ferrari owners I believe each owners experience is unique to that person. This is probably true with any activity or experience you can identify. For me the Ferrari ownership experience revolved around driving the car. Enjoying hearing the engine wind up, feeling the car carve through a turn, shifting, and braking. Nearly as enjoyable was the process of fixing little cosmetic items. I feel my willingness to get my hands dirty, to take the car apart and spend the time and effort to fix things made me a “good” Ferrari owner.

Last night I decided to see how hard it would be to restore an interior door handle. Ferrari decided it would be a good idea to cover the door handles with the same goo that coats much of the interior pieces. Why not? The stuff scratches easily, gets sticky, and retains fingerprints really well. Perfect for a door handle. I am always a bit cautious taking door latch mechanisms apart on cars. I took the door latch on my RX7 apart when I was a kid and it took forever for me to figure out how to put it back together. Luckily the door handle on the Ferrari is just a handle. Also luckily, the door handle part did not dissolve like the steering wheel column cover. The degooificaiton process of using acetone and a rag worked well and soon I was left with a nice plastic piece. I put three coats of paint on it and installed it after dinner.

I will do the other side this weekend and include some pictures.

Fall leaf tour

More than once I have said that one of the best aspects of my Ferrari ownership experience has been the opportunity to share my car with others. Usually this involves talking with folks in parking lots, gas stations, or red lights about the car. Sometimes it involves giving a friend a ride in the car or letting a friend drive the car. In either situation sharing their enthusiasm about Ferraris and cars in general makes the experience enjoyable.

This past weekend Barb and I decided to take the Ferrari out on a jaunt through the countryside. The leaves are changing and the air is cool and clear. I called a friend who has a red 360 and suggested a drive out to a restaurant located about 20 miles southwest of Portland. We had a pleasant drive out. Our pace was leisurely, partly because of the number of cyclists on the road, partly because Tonkin told me to take it easy on the engine during a short break in period. I spent much of the drive looking in the mirror, watching Kevin’s red 360 through a swirl of red, gold and brown leaves.

I had asked Kevin if he would let me spend a bit of time looking over his car. I have been working on the section in my book where I describe the different models I was interested in when I started my search for a Ferrari. Amazingly the section on 355s has a ton of detail. Unfortunately the 360 and 456 sections are pretty thin. Kevin offered to let me drive his car after lunch. We decided to swap cars for a section of the drive home. I had driven Kevin’s car once before, right after he replaced his stock exhaust with a Tubi. He had me do a flying pass through our neighborhood which woke everyone up. That was several months ago and the drive through the neighborhood and a slow loop through the hills by our house were not enough to gain an understanding of the car.

The very first thing I noticed was how much easier it is to get into a 360. No guessing where the door handle is. No wide bulkhead to climb over. After driving the 355 I can call the 360 roomy and comfortable with a completely straight face. The seating position and angle of the steering wheel are better in the 360. Kevin’s car was getting a new clutch while mine was getting valves so the clutch feels good. To my feet it does not feel as good as the clutch in the 355 but good none the less. The shifter in the 360 is lighter and the steering heavier than the 355. The whole car feels more rigid and better connected to the road. While it is a bigger car, and drives bigger it also feels heavier even though it is lighter than my car.

The motor feels like it has significantly more low end grunt and from my seat of the pants evaluation the 360 is noticeably faster. I have heard several writers complain that the 360 is difficult to drive at its limit. I never tested this assertion. The car felt so competent and inspired so much caution I wonder if it lulls testers into a false sense of security.

During the drive I joked to Barb that Kevin’s car had a bit more gas than ours and I was just going to keep driving until he finally pulled over. I really like 360s.

Ferrari, a cure for the common mid life crisis?

So, is a Ferrari a cure for a mid life crisis. Recently I have been wondering if buying the Ferrari helped me accomplish any of the intangible, mid life crisis spawned goals I had when I started this adventure. The simple answer is yes. I think it would be possible to insert, climb Everest, write a book, open a pizza restaurant, or backpack through Europe for the event and experience of buying and driving the Ferrari. Maybe for my next mid life crisis I will chose something different. Maybe not.

Have I accomplished the things I set out to? Mostly. I accomplished all the superficial stuff. I bought a Ferrari. Drove it on a race track and took it on a road trip. For a year I lived my approximation of the Ferrari lifestyle. That lifestyle turned out to be different than I expected but what doesn’t. I tested my thesis that you can buy, drive, and sell a Ferrari in one year and not lose a bundle of money. For me that thesis turned out to be false with this particular car. I think it will turn out to be true for my dad.

To the best of my knowledge I accomplished some of the more esoteric stuff. I say “to the best of my knowledge” because I don’t really have any way of knowing. When presented with decisions I don’t have two rule sets to chose from, one labeled new one labeled old. I just make a decision. I think I accomplished something because I have a Ferrari, because I am writing a book, and because I am less comfortable with where I am than I was one year ago. I think this is an accomplishment because I set out to fight complacency in my life. A result of this is that I am, in a very positive way, constantly seeking to make things better or more to my liking. Another, slightly less positive outcome, is my current unwillingness to do anything I don’t want to do.

Selling the Ferrari

The process of selling the car has not gone how I imagined it would. I expected to place an add on the Ferrari Club website and let RTGT know. I would also use my blog to advertise the car. Instead Dad has agreed to buy it for a yet un-determined price. There are good parts and bad parts to selling the car to dad. Let’s deal with the good ones first. He gets to enjoy a wonderful Ferrari which, for the past year, has been as well taken care of as you could wish. He gets to test my thesis that it is possible to buy and drive a Ferrari without spending too much money. I think he has a better chance at achieving this goal than I. Now the bad parts. If the car breaks I will never hear the end of it. That’s really it. If it breaks I will feel bad, not guilty as I have done all I can to make it a great car but bad.

Thank You RTGT

I picked up the car this morning. It took a couple of tries to get back to the office, due to me overreacting to noises. Hey, I have been driving my Toyota for the last month, it makes no weird noises. The engine feels better. I can’t think of any other way to describe it. It feels tighter and less rowdy. The weird idle it had since I bought it is gone.

I am deeply indebted to Tonkin. Not in the way you think, well in a bit of the way you think. The performed the timing belt service and did the valves for just over $8600. Even with all the times I bugged them, all the times I asked them to show me what they were doing I was still given what I think was a great deal. When I picked up the car I talked with Matt about the valves. The place that did the work was amazed I had only lost 14% compression. Apparently the valves were really off and very dirty to boot.

I was glad to get back in the car. It really is wonderful to drive. I am going to take the long way home this evening and enjoy it.

Ferrari comes home tomorrow

The Ferrari comes home tomorrow. The folks from RTGT called today and it will be ready to pick up tomorrow morning. The remainder of the week looks dry and if the weekend is dry I think I will make a run out to the wine country to pick up a case of wine I purchased as a future.

I probably should clarify my “I had forgotten I owned it” statement. Intellectually I know I own the car. Intellectually I know it will come back from service and spent a few weeks in my care before heading on its way. Emotionally I had disconnected from it, it was out of the garage and gone long enough that I was spending little to no time thinking about it. The propensity of the human mind to forget, ignore, or discard things which are not presented to it on a daily basis is pretty amazing.

One month and counting

The Ferrari has been in the shop for almost one month. I realized this weekend I had forgotten I owned it. Barb’s minivan is happily ensconced in the garage and I drove the Porsche around on Sunday afternoon with the top down. Without the car to drive, wash, and generally obsess over I have been spending my newly found free time fly fishing. I assume the Ferrari will be back for me to sell it within my one year window but who knows?

While fishing this weekend on the Hood River I got to thinking about a book I read a year or two ago. It was about bamboo fly rods. The author was in the lucky position of having some clout within the fly fishing community and makers of bamboo rods would send him a rod to try for. The whole book, chapter after chapter followed the same formula. Package arrives in mail. Bamboo rod is examined and described in great detail. Next, a reel is put on the rod and the author lawn casts is a few times and discusses the rods action and feel. Sometimes the author takes the rod to a river or stream and fishes with it. I know that does not sound so exciting but to a fly fisher and bamboo rod aficionado it was a fun if somewhat guilty pleasure read.

While fishing I thought about doing the same thing with cars. Sure the logistics are a bit more complicated but I think the end result would be the same fun/guilty read.

Missing the Ferrari

Yesterday I saw then got to hear a beautiful 456. I think there were three people riding in it but I could only see the driver and passenger clearly. Both were sporting huge silly grins. I know that feeling. They were heading up a slight hill and as they passed I would hear the V12 wind up under load. What a wonderful sound.

Seeing the car, hearing the car, and even though he did not know it sharing the driver’s excitement made me miss the 355. I expect it will be another two weeks before I have it back. If I stick to my plan, and I will, dad or someone else will need to come collect it in about a month. About the same time I will receive the credit card bill for the engine work.

I thought briefly about selling the Porsche to offset all the money I ended up spending on the Ferrari this year. As you know I had hoped to buy and drive the car with little or no money out of my pocket. Missed that goal by a mile. Maybe more than a mile. I don’t think I will need to sell the Porsche but I have definitely spent my discretionary income for the foreseeable future.

Money in Ferraris, better than money in the market?

I am not a frequent consumer of news or media in general. I read the Economist, Atlantic, and Wine Spectator. I don’t watch TV and only listen to a few minutes of NPR in the morning before I lose interest and switch to Portland’s local classical station. However, even a hermit such as myself has not been immune to hearing about, commenting on, and fretting over the current economic crisis. In our company we have a phrase to describe situations like the one we are now getting to live through: Amateur hour at the goat rodeo. Not bad huh.

I began thinking about the Ferrari. Sure it has cost a bundle but by my reckoning it is still worth about what I paid for it, maybe a tick more since it is now a bit better. In comparison my stock portfolio has lost approximately 30% of its value in the last few months with a few of my holdings losing up to 41%. Sure it’s all long term money and in good companies and funds but still not precisely what I wanted to have happen. I am still better off than most people and am not complaining but I cannot help but think I would be even better off if I had my money in Ferraris rather than General Electric. Further, even though when looked at in absolute terms my Ferrari lost about 20% of its value this year I had the fun of driving it, taking it apart, and starring at it in my garage.

A Trial - Life without a Ferrari

I still don’t understand how valves can be responsible for the complete set of issues this engine is having. Time, and a bundle of money, will tell.

When I was at RTGT yesterday I took a few pictures of the motor. The engine, suspension, and transaxle really are an elegant package.

As I get closer to selling the car I have mixed feelings. It has cost quite a bit more than I expected. I have an estimate from Tonkin for the work they are now doing of approximately $10,000 when you add that to the amount I have spent so far my maintenance total for the year is 12,772. That is a big chunk of change for a car I drove a bit over 2000 miles. When I think about the car from this perspective I really want it out of my garage. I am bitter that I had to spend so much on the car. I could be bitter at Gran Prix, Tonkin, or myself, and sometimes I am. Usually I don’t feel this way. Sure it was expensive and expensive in ways, engine maintenance, that I did not expect but I enjoyed my time with the car, I enjoyed the experiences I had with it. I expect I will forget or at least not care so much about the maintenance expense in the coming years but I will not forget the thrill of driving the car on the track or the fun of sharing the car with friends.

Since the car has been at Tonkin for the past couple of weeks Barb has started parking her minivan in the garage. At first she wouldn’t park the van in the garage. If you remember I put down a white tile floor and she did not want to get it dirty. I think she secretly thought I would not sell the Ferrari and it would be coming back. I wish she were right. Now I avoid going in the garage. Compared to the Ferrari the van is huge, dark, and ugly. It makes me miss the car every time I open the garage door. The Porsche looks lonely, sullen, and tiny.

I expected it to be difficult to sell the can and now am regretting my self imposed one year and sell it rule. If it were up to me I would sell the Porsche and keep the Ferrari, expensive maintenance and all.

Continued 355 Engine Saga

Almost exactly one year ago I sat in the chair in the corner of the office I share with my business partner and decided to buy a Ferrari. I had hoped to transfer the car to dad today. I like the symmetry of dad taking the car on the date I decided to buy it. If dad wanted the car today I would have to recruit some big strong fast guys to stand in the engine bay with me and run dad around in a very low, very expensive rickshaw. I did not get the car until 12.5.07 so I have about two months to get it put back together and sell it to dad, assuming he still wants to buy it.
I could not get my mind around the car needing a valve job.

Here’s what threw me:
1. The car was running fine 99% of the time and every once in a while would idle roughly
2. The car had compression checked less than one year ago and it was perfect
3. The bank of cylinders in question are all equally low

To me these things suggest timing and initially the folks at RTGT felt the same but now with the engine apart they believe timing is not the issue. I wanted to understand why so today I went to visit them and discuss the process they went through to determine valves were the cause of the problem. Matt, the technician working on my car and who strikes me as enormously competent and trustworthy, spent a significant amount of time answering my questions, describing his process, and eventually providing a good demonstration of why he felt it was the valves.

The compression on the side which was repaired prior to me getting the car is fine, not as equal among its respective cylinders as the side which is leaking but the compression is roughly 30 PSI higher. Matt, expecting timing, had checked timing on both sides and found it to be within one degree, Ferrari allows for two. Next he pulled off the exhaust manifold, pressurized a cylinder, and found that with the cam at top dead center, meaning all the valves for that cylinder should be closed, air was escaping through the exhaust port. The exhaust valves are leaking on all the cylinders. He also checked to see what type of valve sleeves the car has and was able to give me a bit of good news, the car has steel valve guides not the brass ones.

Unfortunately Matt could not explain how all the exhaust valves would fail at the same time and to the same degree beyond saying they were all installed at the same time and have all taking about the same number of tiny back and forth trips. He also had no explanation as to how the car could have passed its last compression test with flying colors. I appreciate his tact in not suggesting the last test was in error. I am used to dealing with engineers and technicians whose technical knowledge and experience greatly exceeds mine. I am used to situations where my gut instinct tells me one thing they are arguing the opposite. This is one of those situations. Intellectually I still cannot come to grips with the valves being the issue but I trust Matt so the head is coming off and going to the machine shop. The car will convalesce at RTGT for another few weeks.

On another note, I have been devoting most of my Ferrari time to writing my book. Well, that’s not totally true I have been devoting about half my Ferrari time to writing the other half I have spent tying flies and fly fishing. At this point I have just over 100 pages of book which I am reasonably proud of. I sent the first hundred or so pages to my dad to get his opinion. Sure he will be biased but so what. He liked it, what is more he gave the copy to my Grandmother who read all 100 pages in one sitting and also liked it.

I have been refining my writing and plan on beginning the process of finding a publisher soon.

Only 1/2 a valve job

So from my perspective things have gotten a bit worse. While the timing was off in the car it was not off enough to cause the engine problem and compression difference from on bank to the other. They believe the car needs a valve job.

If you have been following this blog you will say “Wait a minute, didn’t that car have a valve job? Isn’t that one of the reasons you bought it?”

Yup, that was one of the reasons. Turns out it has had ½ of a valve job. Only one bank of cylinders was done. I can understand why, it costs an arm and a leg then a bit more. I wish I was told this when I bought the car. Even though this procedure when coupled with the replacement of the timing belt will add some value to the car I do not expect to recoup 100 cents on my dollar. If I don’t do the work I would be uncomfortable selling the car to my dad, or anyone else for that matter, and I would expect the car would sell at a discount which would be greater than what I will forfeit if I do the service.

One of my goals was to test my theory that you can buy a Ferrari drive it for about a year and not lose a bunch of money. I still think that is true, just not with this particular Ferrari at this particular time. Tomorrow I plan on stopping by RTGT and discussing the plan with them. I expect to tell them to fix it. I wish my year with the car was not drawing to a close in this way but so be it.

355 Engine Out

I was sad to see the car with the motor out. The guys from Tonkin called today to say they had dropped the motor and I could come by and take a look if I wanted. They also said they have found a rock embedded in one of the timing belts. They did not say that bad timing was the reason the car was running rough or for the discrepancy in compression between the cylinder banks.

The car was up on a lift when I arrived and the engine, transaxle, and rear suspension were resting on an engine stand next to it. The back half of the car was empty, a big hole where the engine used to be. Ferrari did a nice job designing this whole package to be easy to remove. If you are going to develop a car where the engine has to come out for most services this seems like the way to do it. The engine is attached to a frame which bolts to the bulkhead. Attached to the engine is the rear suspension and transaxle. More than a third of the car, a really important third, can be unbolted and removed without any serious effort.

The rock in the timing belt had worn an eraser sized hole in the belt. Better it is changed now than it fails later. With luck tomorrow or early next week I will know if the timing adjustment will fix the issues.