Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Billings
I was very convinced by a post on Ferrarichat that went something like this:
308, 328, 348 and 355 need an engine out service every two years.
-- whether you drive it or not
A lot of people go 5 years, but they are kidding themselves.
Headers WILL crack, and that's $4k.
This is no longer a problem for 360 and newer.
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Well, you get what you pay for on the Internet. I’m surprised you found a thread like that on FerrariChat, those guys usually are not that stupid.
308 and 328 have the belt service done with the engine in the car. They are not like the testarossa and later cars, and that the engine was designed to be easily removed for a major service. The later cars have an engine cradle that can be out of the car in an hour.
The two-year interval is also pretty stupid. Most people wait at least five years. You can go longer than that, because if you talk to one of the companies that manufacture timing belts, like Gates for instance, they’ll tell you that the belts are probably good for 7 to 9 years.
They header cracking problem was an issue on the 355. They had headers that were insulated with material designed to keep the exhaust gas temperature high and the earlier cars like the 308 and 328 did not have that and do not suffer from the problem.
Like I said earlier, Ferrari maintenance costs are almost always overstated by people that literally do not have enough of a technical background to know what they’re talking about. The bigger problem is that several models have occasional defects that are very expensive to rectify and Ferrari has trended towards not concerning themselves with keeping parts inventories for the older cars.