> Plaintiff Rose drove the Ferrari slowly home and pulled into the driveway of his residence at approximately 10 miles per hour in first gear. When he attempted to press the brake pedal nothing happened. Plaintiff Rose’s 2020 Vehicle continued moving forward into his yard with Plaintiff Rose continually trying to press the brakes but the brakes would not engage. Plaintiff Rose frantically released his seat belt, opened the driver’s side door and jumped out of the moving vehicle just before it entered the 20-foot-deep pond behind his residence and sunk to the bottom.”
This sounds like a case where the handbrake could have helped a lot. When I still owned cars they had to be cable operated precisely to have a backup against hydraulic failure. Perhaps this is no longer the case.
But stopping a car going 10mph with a handbrake doesn't seem far-fetched.
This is an extremely bad advice. In fact, you should do exactly the opposite - on AT, shut down the engine without touching the selector (there is a chance that AT won't disengage), and on MT, shut down the engine and switch to the lowest gear.
When the engine is not started, the kinetic energy of the car is spent to keep the crankshaft rotating and pistons moving. It stops MUCH faster this way.
If you turn the ignition all the way off (instead of just the engine) the steering lock may engage. Additionally you will also lose power steering and the brake assist. I guess the latter doesn't matter much in this scenario, but the steering lock could result in a really bad time.
Excellent point. I also think that one needs extraordinary presence of mind to think about this and it's not exactly easy to train for. After this conversation I'll still add engine turn-off to my toolbox with a caveat: immediately return the ignition key to the first level to avoid steering lock.
With enough kinetic energy, you don't need to hit the starter position for the engine to restart. You're effectively push starting it at that point. I've done this on a chevy V8 in neutral/park. The engine takes long enough to spin down that if you apply the power to the distributor ( putting the key to "run" ) before it hits Zero rpm ( actual, not measured ) it'll restart because you still have fuel and compression.
Not really. Because a handbrake works on the back wheels only, it's far from effective stopping a car at speed. It's not like you'll be face smashing the windscreen, it takes a really long time to stop and you have to be careful to not overdo it and lock the back wheels. It's really a last resort thing.
However it should be sufficient to stop a car from 10mph in short order. Especially on a Ferrari with its big wide tyres.
On my old cars I've often engaged it in my driveway while still moving. And of course one would press the clutch when getting close to stop :) before that the engine will actually help brake.
The car in question uses a dual clutch transmission. You can operate it in either automatic or manual mode. In manual mode you're selecting the gears yourself using paddle shifters. But there's no clutch pedal.
The automatic mode is technically "automatic-manual" in that it operates differently than a true automatic transmission. The computer shifts gears in lieu of you using the paddle shifters. It tends to be slightly jerkier than a true automatic.
These days its extremely rare to find a new-release supercar with a stick-shift manual. They almost all use dual-clutch paddle shifters.
A sports car paddle shifter is never called "automatic", hence GP's confusion.
It's semi-automatic, or more commonly known as sequential transmission. It's closer to a stick-shift than a manual transmission, as you have to manually upshift and downshift. Only the clutch is automated.
at least in america a sports car would be a car like the toyota supra. Which only added a manual this year. Didn't offer it before. same with many bmw's etc.
So automatics don't have a handbrake in the US? Weird. I had a Volkswagen Jetta automatic from work for a while (7 speed DSG) and it definitely had a traditional pull-up handbrake. But perhaps US is different.
The automatics I have driven had either that or a foot-operated handbrake to the left of where the clutch pedal would normally be. I wouldn’t pretend to know how a Ferrari does it though.
--- this guy has a video of him pulling the parking break while driving his Ferrari (because they told him to...!) - looks like it's a lever on the dash area --
Honestly that sounds like a really intense moment for the guy LOL! Like one minute you're pulling into your driveway, the next your car is at the bottom of a pond.
There's a Ford F250 Super Duty pickup in my driveway about 5 feet from the garage door, that only stopped because of the parking brake. So, yeah, you're right :-)
Another looming reality is that F1 transmission Ferraris made prior to the DCT transmission introduced in the 458 are largely a ticking financial bomb: The cost to replace the primitive paddle shift introduce late 90s and only somewhat perfected in the 430 Scuderia (around 09) is enormous. So much that these cars have depreciated significantly while manual versions have skyrocketed in value, especially the F430 manual.
It's the uncomfortable truth that while Ferraris are great cars, they are horribly made, without much consideration for durability or efficiency that you find in German manufacturers.
You might get lucky and never have to spend more than the yearly maintenance and oil changes but you certainly wouldn't push lot of KMs on it knowing what it does to your resale value and chances of "Ferrari recommended repairs".
Ferrari feels like rackateering. Pay them a ridiculous premium for a non-stellar build quality and ever increasing residual fees to an authorized dealership that will be happy to charge you a few thousand dollars for something that costs way less elsewhere. Steering is light and doesn't instill a sense of confidence at high speeds like you would get with Lamborghini or Porsche.
On top of that Ferrari can go after their own customers for doing whats within their fair use (ex. Purrari) and blacklist them so their cars cannot be serviced or out right banned from purchasing (ex. David Lee) for something that wasn't in their control.
but my god they sound great and fun to drive. its just that the drama and high maintenance cost isn't an issue with other brands in this segment (except McLaren).
I feel like a lot of early 90s-early 2000s automatic sports cars have much less value compared to their manual counterparts, for example porsche and bmw. The price difference is probably much higher for ferrari because the parts to convert to manual are a lot rarer and more expensive.
I've never driven a ferrari, but honestly the f430 or 360 seem like fun cars.
Ferrari started removing manual transmissions from models in the late 2000's and hasn't offered one since the 599 which was discontinued in 2012, so everyone within the past 10-15 years.
That's hardly the case. F1 cars haven't used manual transmissions since 1995. DCT's enable the absurdly fast 0-60 and lap times that people expect when they're paying hundreds of thousands for a car.
This is nothing new. Modern supercars haven't been offered with manual transmissions across most brands for nearly 10 years. You won't find them in a McLaren or Lamborghini made in nearly the past decade. Even Porsche doesn't offer them on the top 911 trims. Audi ditched it for the R8 in 2015. I don't think Mercedes has ever offered one for their AMG cars. As far as drag racing goes most serious competitors uses automatic transmissions.
Pre-458 F1 transmission cars have largely turned the corner on depreciation. The current macro-scale car market correction notwithstanding, even formerly undesirable models are stable. In some cases they have appreciated- looked at F355 prices lately? F1 cars have increased, although like you mention 6 speed cars are much higher.
As far as the repairability of F1 transmissions, it's important to keep in mind that these are essentially 'automated' versions of the manual transmission, not conventional automatic transmissions. There's no torque converter, but there is a clutch like a regular manual. The parts that fail are not usually the expensive gearbox internals (which Ferrari is pretty good at), but rather the bits that automate the operation- pressure switches, hydraulic pumps and solenoids- and the clutch. These can be replaced and there are aftermarket solutions and parts-bin interchanges to fix this stuff.
One mistake folks make with F1 cars is driving it like an automatic. Because the F1 gearbox is fundamentally an automated manual gearbox, driving it like a conventional automatic will cause premature wear. For example, creeping along in traffic or while parking is totally fine for a car with a regular auto trans, but in a F1-equipped Ferrari it will engage the clutch over and over again, slipping and wearing it in short order. This is partially a failure of interface design, as an F1 car will 'let' you drive it like an auto with little warning until you need an expensive clutch service in a couple thousand miles. This accounts for some of the bad reputation of F1 transmissions, as people drove it like a regular auto and racked up big service bills immediately.
The second big mistake owners make is expecting a Ferrari dealer to service an older F1 transmission. First, they don't retain institutional knowledge and support of older systems, which means techs don't know them very well and official parts availability is bad. Second, dealer policy is usually to replace the entire transmission if there is a fault. They won't do the diagnostic work to figure out if it's just a switch or some other component fails. This creates a situation where the best outcome is paying an exorbitant amount for a new F1 transmission, and the worst outcome is being told the transmission is no longer available from the factory and being left with a dead car. Instead of a dealer, anyone with an older F1-equipped Ferrari needs to be working with an independent specialist that is familiar with these cars. Even if you need to transport the car a couple hundred miles away, it will likely cost less compared to the dealer. Good independents will know these older systems better than dealer techs and be able to try solutions that dealers won't consider (such as replacing/adjusting component parts or sourcing used parts to replace parts NLA from the factory). Their labor rates and parts cost will also be lower.
All that said, yeah build quality and durability have never been Ferrari's strong suits. Porsche has always been the sensible supercar choice. However, there are ways to improve the old Ferrari ownership experience and all of them start with getting the car away from the dealer.
Wow this recall was triggered by a lawsuit from a guy whose first Ferrari was totaled by this defect, then replaced by insurance, and the second Ferrari suffered the exact same defect.
> Rose’s insurance company declared the car a total loss and he replaced it with a 2018 Ferrari GTB 488, which he claimed in July 2021 suffered complete brake failure as well. [1]
Reminds me of some Jay Leno youtube video I saw recently, where he says he doesn't own any Ferarris because the company won't sell you one unless you agree to a yearly service contract.
Yes but also take Jay's praises about Mclaren with a grain of salt. He is a celebrity, the rest of us are just sheeps. Mclaren's build quality and depreciation is a lot more serious than Ferrari. We are talking brand new cars purchased that create issues with unapolgeic stance from dealerships. Just watch all the horrible testimnonials from ex-Mclaren
Its almost like they saw what Ferrari was getting away with and decided to up them.
I don't pay attention to the supercar world (perhaps later in life, I am a temporarily embarrassed billionaire after all).
But that surprises me. A few years ago I was out on a bike ride with my kids, and we had a flat tire right in front of the local Mclaren dealership. I popped in and asked if they had a tire pump I could borrow. The mechanic came out and fixed the tire for me. While we waited, the salesman showed off the cars to my kids. I have a photo somewhere on my computer of one of them in the driver's seat acting like they are a race car driver. If the dealerships are so awful to customers, why are they so nice to random people off the street?
After I sold my first company, I went to a Ferrari dealer to look. They were shitty (and a number of friends have sworn off Ferrari forever because of them.)
The McLaren people sent me off in a car by myself for a test drive. Guess who I went with?
If you go in dressed like shit they won't sell you a car. It's one of those things that annoys me but fortunately I started off with purchasing older Ferrari models and built rapport with the local dealership.
I can see why a lot of people wouldn't deal with this BS
Those "good" Ferrari are halo cars and they keep internal tally of their customers based on their purchase history.
I started out from the older models and I hope they will reward me for offering liquidity to their used ferrari market (which is now starting to show signs of inflating).
It's a disgusting strategy of creating artificial scarcity and gaslighting customers into thinking they are getting value (they are not).
Limited edition, lightweight Ferraris hold their values very well against inflation although the more modern ones raises some concerns about production numbers (they drastically upped it but demand premium which market so far has been absorbing): 360CS, 430/16M, 458 Aperta vs 488 Pista
Would I still be with Ferrari if I went thru what you and others went thru? Probably would never bother. Glad I never had to buy from a dealership (Vancouver is horrible), instead just trade on ferrarichat
it was silicon valley ferrari. dealers here largely know you can’t go by outfit. although the audi dealership was also shitty when i went to look at an r8 (thank god, they are awful)
i like to drive my cars hard so used is better for me (find one that is not pristine) and i eventually switched to race car…
The problems with McLarens come from the factory, and I’m sure the factory says “fuck off” to the dealership so the dealership passes then”fuck off” to the customer.
You're absolutely right about depreciation and perhaps there's build quality issues but the criticisms Jay Leno has about Ferrari are very real and very valid. I personally am not in the position to buy a new Ferrari but one day I hope to own a used exotic and it won't be a Ferrari.
To buy the "good" Ferrari that doesn't depreciate or even appreciates, you must first purchase a number of less desirable Ferraris loaded with options which don't hold their value nearly as well. Mclaren lets anyone who has the money to buy whatever they want witch some exceptions.
Ferrari has been known to completely corrupt the review process up to and including specifically preparing cars for reviews. This includes sending a literal team of engineers to prep the car. This means that the car Ferrari gives to reviewers is always certainly better than the ones it delivers to customers. There's even been stories of Ferrari tires literally sticking to dynos.
Ferrari also has been nailed for allowing dealerships to rollback the mileage of cars as a service for certain customers. Being able to drive your car 50k miles and sell it as a 5k mile car certainly has resale advantages.
Ferraris are great cars, I have nothing against them but the company is about as consumer unfriendly as you can possibly be.
I owned one - it was a champ. 1500 track miles in a year. I had it four years. Almost no issues. A bunch of friends own or have owned them. They are comparable. Don't get your information from forums.
Ferrari also won't sell you their better models until after you've bought at least one of the lower end models. If I ever have the $$ to own a Ferrari, I'm certain I'd have to buy on the used market to get the model I want.
I think at least the Ferrari 488 GTB that drove into the pond actually doesn't, it has an "electric parking brake" that you can activate somewhere on the dashboard next to the steering wheel, but not a normal handbrake. I can imagine not trusting this or forgetting where the button is if I were 2 seconds away from driving into a pond.
Parking brakes are really just intended to hold a car still when parked. They’re typically not very effective at stopping a moving car, nor designed to.
The emergency brake in a car has a small fraction of the braking force of the service (normal) brakes. The emergency/parking brake typically acts only on the rear brakes and often via a separate braking surface that is nowhere near as powerful as the rear service brakes, to say nothing of the all-wheel service brakes.
In at least some cases, it's actually the same pads and rotors but just cable actuated, so that it can still work in case of total hydraulic failure. Wikipedia:
"In vehicles with rear disc brakes, the parking brake either actuates the disc calipers (with much less force) or a small drum brake housed within the hub assembly (the inner circumference of the disc is often used instead of a separate drum). This secondary drum parking brake is often referred to as a banksia brake."
From the article it sounds like it affects ~1% of cars, and causes a complete loss of ability to brake. The one guy in the article linked in the comments had it total his Ferrari in June 2021, bought a new one, and it happened to the new one almost immediately too, in July 2021.
Doesn’t sound THAT rare for such a serious issue. Ferrari’s themselves are pretty rare though, so total numbers are low (23.5 K in the states, so 1% affected would mean about 235 cars).
While the term recall seems dramatic, most automotive recalls involve fairly simple fixes. Cars are complicated machines, and it's pretty common for issues to pop up over the years.
Did it take 15 years for Toyota to acknowledge the defects? Looks like this is limited to 2017 Sequoia and 2018 Highlander, and it's got to be less than 5 years. They also flash a warning light when the problem is detected.
Yes, most of these were most likely caused by classic gas-and-brake confusion. Yet, the cars also had mechanical, electrical and software defects that could and did cause UA.
> In an attempt to hide these defects from investigators, Toyota switched to verbal communication on the defect rather than traceable forms of communication. As a result, many new cars were knowingly produced with the same floor mat issues that had been identified as being having the potential to cause SUA problems in association with the defective pedal design.
> ... on March 19, 2014, the DOJ issued a deferred prosecution agreement with a $1.2 billion criminal penalty for issuing misleading and deceptive statements to its consumers and federal regulators, as well as hiding another cause of unintended acceleration, the sticky pedal, from the NHTSA. This fine was separate from the $1.2 billion settlement of a class action suit ... ... Nearly 400 wrongful-death and personal injury cases were also privately settled by Toyota as a result of unintended acceleration.
Big car companies are generally aligned on this front. I don't get it, they're developing and delivering safety critical systems. Why does it take hundreds of incidents before corrective action is taken?
I prefer the NTSB approach (shared by most countries aviation safety councils): Every major incident is investigated to ensure lessons are learned so it isn't repeated.
Unfortunate how low the bar is to be allowed to operate a motor death machine. On average the cause is "driver error".
Its also <24,000 cars in the US. So pretty small compared to others. Major US car manufacturers recall millions of vehicles at a time. And I believe the Takata Airbag recall covered something like 70 million across all manufacturers.
> and a software patch that lets a driver know if their brake fluid reservoir is running low.
You mean like every single other vehicle ever made? I thought this was a law. Also, if all it takes is a software patch, then that means there already a fluid level switch in the reservoir. Unless they are doing some magic computation that measures the brake fluid pressure and the brake pedal position that's able to detect air bubbles in the line. Modern ABS controllers are already doing a full physics simulation of the hydraulic brake circuits, so it's possible.
Maybe on higher end or newer vehicles sure, but for your standard economy vehicle made in the last 2 decades its commonly just visually reading (as in a human just looking with their eyeballs) the fluid level on the reservoir. No sensors or switches involved.
That hasn’t been true in the U. S. for a good 50 years. Cars going back to the 60s had a small float switch that flipped a dashboard light if the fluid got low. As one who used to work on cars as a profession, I don’t recall that I’ve ever seen a car without this simple warning device.
The reason parent commenter doesn’t know this is because hydraulic leaks on auto brake systems are relatively rare as long as the vehicle darkens the door of a shop occasionally, even if rarely. Ergo, one might not even know there is a dash light.
Tell me with a straight face that you know more than one person beside yourself that actually looks at those lights at startup and checks that they are working. :-) I mean, you're right, but I'd venture to guess that for a lot of people the "lamp test" doesn't mean anything to them.
I tend to think that this is one of those things that amateurs would only notice at first as, "I think that one of those red lights is not turning on at ignition." Not specifically the brake fluid level.
Grew up driving pre-1980's cars and didn't know about this until this year. The light on the dash that lit up was the same indicator as the light that comes on when the hand-brake is engaged. When the light would not go off when the hand-brake was disengaged and I thought the brake needed adjustment. Nope, fluid just low.
From my experience car manufactures like any recall work to be done at their dealerships regardless of the amount of skills required. I imagine they like to confirm that the repair has been applied in order to reduce any future liability.
People need to stop shaming manufacturers for recalling their vehicles. The alternative is NOT letting the consumer know about these issues, NOT fixing them, or charging a substantial fee to fix them.
If Firefox discovered a security vulnerability and pushed an update proactively, no one would think twice.
> People need to stop shaming manufacturers for recalling their vehicles.
'Recall' is a really alarmist word as well. It makes it sound like they have to go back to a factory or they get scrapped and you get a new one or something.
Reality is it means you have to just pop into your dealer some time so they can pop off one cap and pop a new one on. You'll be there anyway for servicing every now and again. Not really the catastrophe it sounds like.
>You'll be there anyway for servicing every now and again.
I've worked at a car dealership before. Find a mechanic you trust, the car dealership will rip you off time and time again. I had to bring my car in for a recall previously, and they said right away that the brakes also needed replacing immediately. I brought it in to my mechanic instead to do it, they said I had at least another year on the back brakes, and 2 years on the front depending on how I actually drive. Ended up replacing the back after a year and a half, and am on year 3 for the front (will probably be replacing them shortly).
my take on dealerships is that you just have to know the maintenance schedule for your vehicle, and like you mention, understand how to gauge wear items yourself, because they will try to sell you services ahead of schedule, or on the "extreme use" schedule. as long as you pay attention and are willing to say no, dealerships are reasonable places to get your car serviced.
I've had bad luck with independent mechanics taking on jobs they weren't capable of doing properly and ruining a car in the past. Although it sounds like you had an honest one, independent mechanics aren't necessarily above selling you goods and services that you don't need, especially if you don't know the maintenance schedule or have maintenance records.
Agree, at my dealership they do get very pushy about early maintenance, high-priced tires, etc. But they've always seemed to take "no" for an answer.
Unfortunately they also have a habit of doing things in too much of a hurry, such as leaving fluid levels low (possibly from not letting bubbles settle out), misaligning hubcaps, and using incorrect (low) tire pressures. The last of which helps fulfill their goal of wearing out tires sooner so they can pitch replacements. This is sort of a risk with most garages, though.
A lot of mechanics still use the old recommendation of 5,000km/3,000miles while modern vehicles and modern oils mean that doing that is wasting resources.
HAHAHA
Its only a waste of resources if you plan to have the car for 3 years and then swap to another new lease, perpetually 'owning nothing and being happy'. Same deal with "lifetime" sealed transmission oil. Its lifetime all right, 100K miles of it.
Err... I've been using the manufacturer's recommended (extended) oil change intervals since, well, when did Ford introduce the "bubble" Taurus design? Mid-1990s? I've been using the vehicle's "oil-change-ometer" since I first got a vehicle with it, which means 10-15K mile intervals for me. Admittedly, that is a small sample of 4 vehicles (said Taurus, 2 Ford F150s, and the 2002 'Vette I used to use for commuting).
I've never had an oil-related failure.
And before you ask, yes, they're all high-mileage; for a while I was doing 25,000 miles/year.
as far as I'm aware what some Ferrari owners have started doing is purchase the after market ODB type of tool that lets you run the same diagnostics that Ferrari dealership does for several hundred dollars. The tricky part is that it voids warranty and you could very well brick your car.
However, it is great for people who wants to work on their own car and resell value isn't really a concern.
Willing to risk destroying the car to save hundreds of dollars.
I don't get it. Those two things seem incompatible to me. Ferrari isn't about frugality, and cost of ownership necessarily means hundreds of dollars is not a problematic expense.
Very much easier said than done for most people. Assuming you aren’t lucky enough to have a mechanic in your circle, how do you tell whether they are trustworthy?
Trial and error in my case, cars need regular maintenance so plenty of opportunities to shop around. I've been to the main dealer, chain type garages and independents. A couple of the smaller indies get my custom all the time now.
Simple things like going for a replacement tyre and being given a choice of price ranges and an explanation of each option, then watching them do the change and hand torque to the correct spec.
Or an air con regas at £50 at a small garage vs £120 at the main dealer.
Most recently I had the discs changed, was able to order the parts myself and drop them off for fitting at the cost of labour only. That'd never be an option at a main dealer or chain type garage but is pretty common for smaller outfits apparently.
I just went on fb groups for my local neighborhood - highest upvoted pick I chose. That was 4 cars ago still take my cars there. Was a dealership user before that myself.
I knew he was trustworthy because I asked him to explain what he was doing and why. He went into great detail. Brought an unidentifiable problem to him and he found a corroded wire vs 700 in repairs the dealer suggested. Just little things like that will let you know. Check their certificates, make sure at least ASCE (sp) certified.
Also take a look at the shop and see what cars are in the lot. Bunch of 5-10 year old cars in great shape seems to be a good sign IMO as people who take care of their cars trust the mechanic
Honestly, just ask around for the most honest mechanic. Anyone you know, people on the street, doesn't matter. You'll get a list pretty quick, and you'll notice some names said far more frequently. Then give them a try, you should be able to find one you trust.
> So what? Say no if you don't want the work. Done. Do you get mad at every salesman who pushes their product on you?
Non-functional breaks mean death. If its okay for an expert to lie to you to sell you unnessesary service, then it's okay for a doctor to tell you you need urgent surgery when in fact you don't?
>a doctor to tell you you need urgent surgery when in fact you don't?
I have had exactly that happen to me when I visited a very fancy dental clinic, replete with photos of household name celebrity clients on its lobby's wall.
After doing a fancy 3D scan of my teeth they've concluded that I urgently needed to remove a wisdom tooth that had been lying dormant in a horizontal position in my mouth or else.
That "else" hasn't happened in 10 years since my first and only visit there.
This is definitely true for most car dealerships (Ford, Honda, etc) but I've found it not the case at all for higher end cars.
When I took my Porsche to my trusted mechanic they recommended I take it to a Porsche dealer, and advised me not to even adjust the oil myself. I've owned less expensive cars for most of my life and am used to doing a lot of maintenance myself. It took me awhile of owning a Porsche to realize things are a bit different with more expensive cars.
Ferrari dealer service departments are at their best when servicing newer models, like less than 10 years old. Anything older than that, dealer expertise and factory support drops off precipitously. In that case, you are much better off going to a reputable independent Ferrari specialist. Many of these shops will be staffed by ex-dealer employees. It's still important to go to a Ferrari specialist, as a general purpose indy mechanic will probably cause issues or do things in an inefficient way.
The Ferrari dealership is going to have much more expert mechanics in working on Ferraris that just about any other mechanic you'll find (I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but that's going to be rare).
If you're selling cars $300k+ minimum, you're selling much more than the car. Your dealership is going to be treating you the same way enterprise software companies treat a corporate account (dedicated sales, customer success, etc).
That's an interesting example, as brake pads are not expensive, and you can view the wear easily. Perhaps it's a signal to them: if they can get away with this, they can get away with more expensive "repairs".
I’d be surprised if even 3 out of 10 drivers could make a confident conclusion from looking at their brake pads whether or not they should be changed in the next few thousand miles. If you’ve done a brake job before, you know, but that’s something many (most?) people imagine is beyond their ability, despite being one of the easiest maintenance jobs IME.
1. The same people who can't judge a brake pad by looking at them probably aren't going to know which points to measure between. [Though the common error here would be to assume there is more brake pad left than is the case, by incorrectly including the backing plate in the measurement.] If the min spec is 4mm and you measure 4.5mm, they're clearly legal/safe, but for how much longer? If you don't know how a new set of pads measures, you have a hard time estimating.
2. This is not in the context of "no one knows whether these pads are above minimum spec" but rather in the context of a dealership recommending service before the pads have worn down to minimum spec. There are valid reasons (mostly convenience) why someone might choose to have brake pads replaced before they're at minimums and valid reasons why others would choose to run them all the way out.
> Find a mechanic you trust, the car dealership will rip you off time and time again.
The dealership is doing work under warranty, so are motivated to fix things quickly and permanently. A freelance mechanic is motivated to find more things wrong and to never really fix them so you have to keep coming back.
Car manufacturers are not without blame in this situation. Their products are designed to be difficult and expensive; bordering on impossible to service.
I have a mid 2000s sedan from the Ford motor company, recently the air conditioning stopped working; initially I engaged with a few different freelance mechanics, one billed me for a pressure system check / recharge, another said they didn't know what was wrong but could do "diagnostics" until I cried uncle on the costs. The car is worth maybe $3,000 so I can't justify a lot of repair costs on it, but at the same time the powertrain is still in great shape. The Ford dealership was able to pinpoint the actual problem, which was a $25 ambient temp sensor-- but it's buried in the center of the dash requiring $1000 worth of labor to replace.
Ultimately I was able to find the ambient temp sensor pins on the glove box wiring harness and bridge them with a 47 cent resistor, tricking the computer into turning my AC back on.
Cars could be so much better. We'd generate less waste if perfectly good vehicles weren't getting thrown away because Ford and GM designed them to fail in opaque and unserviceable ways, unfortunately things have been trending the opposite direction with BEVs and Tesla in particular.
> Their products are designed to be difficult and expensive; bordering on impossible to service
I've worked most of my career writing software to control physical objects. Nobody designs like this, it wouldn't even make sense.
The reality is that there are always competing interests. The Service team wants things to be easy to repair, but the Sales team wants it to be cheap and easy to sell, while Marketing wants it to never breaks at all. You can't reconcile all of those.
Sometimes engineers screw up. OK, often engineers screw up! But more often than not, functionality wins over everything and the engineer puts the sensor in the best place she can, given the constraints that she had to work with. Someone runs the reliability analysis and says that the sensor isn't likely to fail during the car's expected lifetime, so service isn't a big concern. Sometimes your specific car falls on the wrong side of that reliability curve, sometimes the engineer who did the analysis screwed up, or sometimes Shit Just Happens.
But no one designs things to be hard to service: that would mean it's hard to build in the first place and just take too big a bite out of profits.
>The Ford dealership was able to pinpoint the actual problem, which was a $25 ambient temp sensor-- but it's buried in the center of the dash requiring $1000 worth of labor to replace.
not ambient, Im guessing Evap Temperature Sensor. You can cut a hole in the dash to get to evaporator, JB weld compatible temp sensor to the side of it, and patch it to the wiring loom. One hour and a $10 thermistor to fully working AC.
>bridge them with a 47 cent resistor, tricking the computer into turning my AC back on
tricking your AC system into permanently engaged compressor clutch
FWIW, this sounds very similar to how the climate control in an old Volvo 240 works. There is a rheostat buried deep under the dash, and when it fails you can only select between ambient temperature air or Swedish Sauna Hot. If you find someone who has done this exact repair before, it will take them about 4 hours. If you DIY it as a decent mechanic, count on spending a whole weekend.
This is by design. How can it be that newer versions of the same electric car can't simply be fitted with a new battery? Instead the whole car has to be scraped.
It's no mystery of course, if you think about it from the manufacturers perspective - it all about greater sales. The environmental perspective is just another sales angle really.
I'm not big on cars. I would happily drive an open source car.
> How can it be that newer versions of the same electric car can't simply be fitted with a new battery? Instead the whole car has to be scraped.
Which car are you thinking of? All of the EVs I know of let you replace the battery (granted, it may be an ordeal like the new Model Y with structural pack, but at least it's still possible and officially supported).
I'm believe I'm thinking of the Nissan Leaf (was a little while ago). And I'm talking about upgrading the battery, not replacing like for like.
The scenario is that an old battery can only store so much charge, which limits your range. However newer versions have better batteries and therefore longer ranges.
The kicker is that the better battery cannot be fitted into a perfectly functional older car.
Don't forget that the functionality of older batteries decreases too, with a loss of range. So you can fork out for a very expensive battery but it is for the old version only. Feels like a lose-lose scenario (expense and poor range).
Frankly the electric car economics in general don't make sense for anyone that actually needs to cover some miles - the older cars lose range and will be an expensive headache in the future, and the newer versions are way too expensive for what they do.
That was my analysis anyway, when I looked into buying a second hand EV.
That's not true. Standard batteries can be switched in or out, and there are different types, brands, etc. I know EV batteries are bigger etc, but I think it's comparable. They are just batteries.
In EVs though, replacing the battery is so expensive - thousands of pounds/dollars - it makes no sense to do it. So once the battery starts degrading after only a few years, the upgrade is incredibly expensive - essentially the cost of a car.
If by doing so you could at least extend the range and see a benefit, perhaps it would make sense. And why couldn't you do it. Because its a design anti-pattern. If you stick to a certain space in the car for the same model, you could easily make this a feature. But you wouldn't if you just want to sell cars.
As it is, I think these cars will have a shorter life span than non-EV cars - they will be scrapped earlier as they are not economically viable. I don't see how they not far less environmentally unfriendly than non-EVs.
My EV is going in for a new battery in a few months. Takes about a day. Are there any EVs today that can't have the battery replaced? I get that the Model Y makes it a bit harder than most, but AFAIK most of the 'skateboard' designs have relatively easy to replace battery modules.
Exactly like this! In my case, the center console + shifter assembly and driver side instrument panel all needed to be removed to access a sensor that is positioned behind the passenger side air bag.
Too true, My sister-in-law had a VW. She took it to a dealership to replace a headlight lightbulb. Cost several hundred dollars, it involved removing the bumper.
Honestly not sure if it was a scam by the dealership or if the car was really that poorly designed.
My wife had to have a headlight replaced on a new car, about 2 years after owning it. There was a ton of work to replace it. Unlike my first car (ahem) years ago where this was a routine thing and took all of 5 minutes.
So yes, it is now ridiculously complicated to replace lights. But here’s the kicker — my wife’s dealer had never had to do it before. They are so reliable that this was the first time they had to replace a light in that model. We walked in and asked them to replace it as if it was routine. They didn’t believe us that it was out.
So, my guess, not knowing anything about the VW in question is that it really was that complicated, but not something that is expected to happen often.
Exactly the same thing is gradually happening with lights at home. In the past, light bulbs always had some variant of the standard screw-in socket because the bulbs would wear out so often; with modern LEDs, the lights last far longer so making them easy to replace is less important. At the same time, LEDs are so flexible in size and shape that forcing them into an easily replaceable form-factor is a much larger imposition. Between these two aspects, lamps without replaceable bulbs make a lot of sense from a purely practical design point of view.
Sometimes (see my comment upthread), it can't really be helped. I had the same reaction to the Service manual when a headlight on my 350Z went out: what do you mean I have to remove the bumper to change a lightbulb? Makes no sense.
However, while it's possible to do it without removing the bumper (I go in through the wheel well), it's harder that way. The reality is that there isn't a lot of room in the first place, and headlights can last a very long time, so for an infrequent service it does make sense.
The car dealership is doing work under warranty, so they don't make any real money from you (they can put in the work/time/labour for whatever the manufacturer wanted them to fix, but that has a set margin that's determined by corporate - who for sure have counted their beans) - the real money is in upselling - getting you to do brakes while you get the warranty repair done, selling you new windshield wipers while you're there, etc.
Hey while you're in for servicing, why don't we do a fuel system treatment too? it's only $50 and we'll get your car fixed for the warranty and get it to run better too!
The other side for car dealership warranty repairs that I've also seen is that they get so many repairs in the shop that they can't do each one properly cause they are under pressure from corporate to do the servicing for a certain dollar amount, and they can't spend any additional labour hours/time to do it right.
this happened on engine recalls, due to the complexity of an engine recall, the mechanics didn't get allotted enough time to do each one, so basically, corporate tried to shove 4 hours of work into 2 paid hours - the end result is shoddy workmanship due to the mechanics only doing 2 hours of work on a 4 hour job (so rushed, loosed bolts, parts left over, not installed correctly, etc) - there ended up being a 2nd recall on top of the first recall because it wasn't the dealer mechanic's fault - they weren't being given enough time to do each one
There is also the aspect of customer relationship building, as far as Ferrari are concerned, their customers are there for the duration.
The idea is that you buy several normal cars from them, then, if you are lucky and really, really on best behaviour, they will let you on to the lottery to get an allocation for one of their special edition models.
If you get the special allocation then you can't 'flip' it, you have to play by the game because otherwise Ferrari won't sell you another special edition model.
If I was a dealer and I had to replace 1000 fuel filler widgets free of charge in my own time in order to keep those customers happy enough for one of them to come back and spend a million, then it would not be a problem. Getting those 1000 customers through the door again (or even a dozen of them) is all good.
Funny how few of these Ferraris get to put in any miles. It isn't range anxiety, it is mileage anxiety. If you had to drive 400 miles you would not do it because of the miles and how that affects the value. Hence these cars spent their time in garages, connected to wall chargers, turning a wheel once or twice between services in order to ensure everything is mechanically peachy.
In the UK the likelihood of finding a Ferrari is high in London where the average speed is in the single digits. Some of these cars don't get to escape the capital, they don't drive at speed, they just sit there as a speculative asset.
Maybe my warranty is different to yours, but tyres, brakes, wipers, fluids, fuel system are all under my warranty. They only need changing on schedule that is in the manual, not by their suggestion. They've never suggested up-selling anything at all.
Tyres aren't included in any kind of car manufacturer warranty. It might be on a lease agreement (where you can only use their pre-determined brand of tires installed at their pre-determined mechanics)
Even for high end race cars, tyres you need to pay out of pocket for - since they are total wear items.
Some people (like me) keep their cars after the warranty expires, for us it doesn't make sense to go to the dealer at that point if you have a good independent mechanic. Being a good mechanic includes not finding unnecessary repairs to charge you for and depending on repeat business from happy customers.
That's literally what the process is called though?
>A recall is issued when a manufacturer or NHTSA determines that a vehicle, equipment, car seat, or tire creates an unreasonable safety risk or fails to meet minimum safety standards. [1]
In this case, a piece of equipment on these Ferraris fails to meet a minimum standard, so a recall is issued. Where your association of recall = scrap the car comes from, I don't know, but issuing a recall is pretty damn standard, happens all the time, and has no bearing on what the fix for the recalled equipment/car/etc. might be.
“Ferrari issues recall notice to replace brake fluid cap in nearly all cars sold since 2005”
Sounds way different than:
“Almost every Ferrari sold since 2005 is being recalled”
The first one sounds like a common occurrence in the car industry. The second one sounds like a salmonella outbreak in frozen peas that you need to throw away the bag or return it to the store.
I agree that those have different tones, absolutely, and the one is much more extreme. I don't put that difference down to the word "recall" though, and I don't think "recall" is an alarmist word, as the parent does.
> That's literally what the process is called though?
I didn't say it wasn't - I said it sounds a bit more alarming than it actually is. The vehicle doesn't have to go anywhere, it just has to pop into the service garage quickly.
I guess I'm just not understanding how the process name, which has been the process name for a long time, is "alarmist". The way you phrased it made me think you have some alternate word to use for the process of recall which is less "alarmist".
The problem with using one word, "recall", for a massive range of issues, is that people mistake really small issues to be more in the middle of the range.
In this case the issue is tiny, the fix is tiny. It's not like a recall where a decent number of people will die from exploding gas tanks, which also falls under the word "recall".
Maybe if they added a severity, even a simple 1-5, like computer people use for vulnerabilities, or the military uses for levels of alert, or we use for storms, and so on, this would not happen.
But using the correct word can be alarmist if articles, headlines, or pundits use it to scare beliefs into the middle of the possible range when it's at the low end.
> I guess I'm just not understanding how the process name, which has been the process name for a long time, is "alarmist".
It sounds more alarming than is the case in practice. They is literally no 'recall' - you just pop in - so the word isn't even accurate if you read it literally. I'm not sure how to explain it beyond that?
I’m most familiar with a “recall” in the food industry, where the contaminated food is not salvageable. So my first impression upon reading the headline was that Ferrari was going to have to scrap or replace all cars made since 2005. Obviously that’s wrong, after reading the article.
But I think the car industry is an exception in that it makes sense to fix the effected product. Most other products that are recalled (food, or the Galaxy Note 7, or other gadgets, for example), are not quickly fixed. In those industries (most other than automotive) a “recall” means throwing away potentially huge amounts of product.
Edit: To clarify, I’m saying the title could be easily misunderstood. I understand that it is correct.
The dictionary defines recall as "officially order (someone) to return to a place".
> it just has to pop into the service garage
In other words, a recall. I don't see what's alarming about this. An inconvenience at best, but chances are that you'll pop in for routine service at some point anyway.
I think it's more a byproduct of poor human perception of "large" numbers.
"Toyota recalls 120,000 vehicles for minor problem XYZ!"
zomg, 120k, that's a huge number, what a HORRIBLE thing. Boy they really screwed something up!
Never mind the fact that this may span a production run of 4.7 Million vehicles over 8 years. This is less then 3% of customers affected because they all happened to use the same generic part for common function (e.g. a simple brake fluid reservoir cap).
This sort of thinking has caused the word "recall" to get a bad reputation. Worse so when it's a "safety recall" which generally is the same thing, but actually tied to a part like a seatbelt, airbag, etc. Combine the negative connotations with the word safety and it just amplifies the unwarranted panic level.
I guess I still don't see what is alarming about needing to go back to the dealership to have something fixed/replaced, even if the number of people needing to do is high. Short of them making a service call to your place (where the necessary tools may not be available), what's the alternative?
I guess I'm questioning where the connotation comes from.
I've never considered "recall" to be alarmist. It's just a process. I look at the recall notice, see what I have to do, and go from there. 95% of recalls I've been involved in are similar to this one: go to the shop, replace a $50 part, go on with my day.
I just find it weird that the name of a mundane process is "alarmist". Different exposure, I guess.
To a lot of consumers, "recall" implies the product they bought is unsafe and will end up hurting them or causing significant property damage. Think contaminated foods, car parts catching fire, faulty ignition switches causing vehicle crashes, airbag inflator shrapnel issues, etc.
So when they hear $AUTOMAKER is issuing a big recall, to a lot of people it means there's something massively unsafe about those cars. Even though sometimes a recall is just replacing a cap that doesn't seal as well as it should, or an exhaust filter canister not performing as it should, or other less critical recall reasons.
I really doubt it's the "shaming" that's making them not act on it[1]. Like all companies they are profit driven and won't recall until it becomes financially untenable for them.
Not to mention that:
1. Ferrari knew about this and did nothing until...
2. a driver had to leap out of his moving vehicle in order to avoid certain death by drowning.
If anything, a little shaming is necessary in this case.
Pretty sure companies have to do recalls and people need to know about the recalls. So it getting picked up by the media, or as you call "shaming" is actually things working correctly?
I mean to be fair to the case - the only reason the manufacturer is doing it is the result of a class action lawsuit so I'm not sure you should be defending the manufacturer in this case.
But yeah voluntary recalls shouldn't be met with derision.
> If Firefox discovered a security vulnerability and pushed an update proactively, no one would think twice.
However, if Firefox discovered a security vulnerability, and then had to be sued to do anything about it, and only then did they push an update, everyone would be up in arms.
It’s a balance. You don’t want so many repercussions that a manufacturer would rather deal with the fallout rather than doing a recall but at the same time you don’t want total acceptance where quality control is ignored completely. We don’t want to have a situation where cars are going to need day zero fixes.
It's not that people don't like recalls. They don't really care about them very much. It's that they don't like Ferrari (not that they dislike Ferrari, they just don't like them) and the recall is an excuse to say bad things. It's like middle school all over again where nobody actually cares about <attribute> but if they don't like you <attribute> will be used to make fun of you. If this was a Toyota or Honda recall they would be saying "look they care about their customers" or "other manufacturers wouldn't have recalled that". Gotta love double standards.
I agree. The edge between manufacturers in practice is tiny. But some manufactures catch a lot more flak than others for their failings and in my observation this has a lot more to do with perception of what kinds of people tend to buy what kinds of cars than it has to do with the cars themselves.
I think you've raised a very relevant issue. Some brands include a perceived element of social signaling (especially 'wealth-signaling'), and that will inevitably generate some negative pushback, as we see here
Tesla would be another example, and also most so-called 'luxury' brands like Ferrari of course
I'm not saying it's right, or it's wrong, but this phenomenon exists
This sounds like a case where the handbrake could have helped a lot. When I still owned cars they had to be cable operated precisely to have a backup against hydraulic failure. Perhaps this is no longer the case.
But stopping a car going 10mph with a handbrake doesn't seem far-fetched.