Thursday 28th February 2013

PH Fleet: Ferrari 599 GTB

Harris has got rusty nuts and a flat battery

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Cynics looking for evidence of Ferraris being bought by people who care far more about the image associated with ownership than the pleasure of driving them need look no further than the cubby in the right hand side of the boot of a 599. For here lies the battery cut-off switch. Every series production Ferrari has one, and has done for decades - even my 1994 512 TR was fitted with one.

Battery cut-off indicative of intended usage

It could be interpreted as the saddest reflection of the brand that Ferrari makes the easiest supercars to plonk into storage for any length of time. But the reality is even committed people like me have to press the pause button when it snows, so a battery cut-off is a welcome addition.

Handily, my car has been fitted with a top-up charger adaptor which allows me to plug in a widget safe in the knowledge that it will keep the battery in tip-top condition as the countryside turns white. So I was a little miffed to find that it wouldn't start last week: partly with Ferrari for supplying me with what I thought was a duff charger, partly with myself for not noticing that the two terminal clips didn't quite fit each other.

When something similar happened in a 575 I had a few years ago, I phoned the dealer and asked what to do. They became agitated. "Don't under any circumstances jump start it, you'll blow ECUs and it'll cost thousands."

Flat as a pancake but OK after a trickle charge

Worried that the same advice would apply, I phoned Dick Lovett again but this time they were far more relaxed. "You can jump it of you want, but we'd just recommend using a normal trickle charger." So I did, and it worked fine.

Rooting around in the gizzards of a 599 is educational, especially if you have also carried out the same investigations in the 575. The more of the old car's innards you revealed, the less convinced of its provenance you became: it was basically a tubular steel chassis with vast control units bolted anywhere the space could be found. It was a TVR in posh Italian clothes. It was crude.

The 599 is neat and beautifully assembled: the terminal boxes on the battery look like they're from an expensive race car, the inside of the aluminium body panels have a matt, quasi-military finish: everything is ordered, relatively petite and all the fixings are metal meaning they can be re-torqued without fear of them breaking. Take note Porsche.

Even the toolkit is a thing of beauty

One of the great joys of owning a once very expensive car which has depreciated like warm ice-cream is that the trinkets supplied with it from new, and designed to appeal to the type of customer who expected the best, remain very beautiful objects indeed. The leather case for the various instructions books is rather special, as is the exhaustive main manual itself (excepting the hilariously vague diagram for locating the towing eye) and the tool kit under the boot floor is probably worth a few quid on eBay.

The only let-down is the god-awful red plastic key which looks way too squalid a thingy to start a car as majestic as this. Oh, and the fact that the wheel nuts have gone rusty over the winter.

After the recharge, the car started first time. The dashboard went nuts and told me that outside of a general warning of the world ending very soon, the airbags had lost all interest in coming along for the ride. The first rule of Ferrari ownership is of course never to trust a warning message until you've shut the car down, locked it for a few minutes and restarted it (unless it's an oil pressure warning). Sure enough, it hasn't re-appeared since.

Rusty nuts are not befitting a car like this

The next day I managed 320 miles on A-roads and right now I don't want that new Caymananything like as much as I did a few weeks ago. The 599 remains the best £80-£90k sportscar by a country mile.

 

 

 

 

 

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FACT SHEET
Car: 2007 Ferrari 599 GTB
Run by: Chris Harris
Bought: July 2012
Mileage: 21,950
Purchase price: Move along...
Last month at a glance: Flat battery, rusty wheel nuts - gotta love winter

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Previous updates:
Harris parks his Ferrari in the wrong sort of paddock
PH Fleet Ferrari 599 GTB: Man + maths = 599

[tomoleeds]

Chris,with the cost of finance,and how much you would get for the car,assuming you would sell it to a dealer or PX,as i think it may be hard to sell private,how much do you think its cost to own so far.Just wondered if depreciation was high at this age of a 599.

[beach kid]

Ferrari must have used the same wheel nut supplier as Porsche used for my 996!

Thanks for the update...

[Repent]

Kill switch is interesting, wasn't aware of that!

Beautiful thing though, saw you on Park Street a week or so ago, massive presence and purpose without any air of ostentatiousness in that combo. Was tempted to cross arms and mimic the PH smiley but decided against it on the grounds you'd probably just think I was demented

[tbc]

those in PH Towers and motor journos must be VERY well paid

a bit like the guy with the purple R8 who rakes it in from youtube adverts

or the other guy who has since disappeared who went from a shed to an RS4 to a GT-R to a 360 by 'trading up'

[Porkie]

Lovely car Chris. So classy in that colour

Gonna get my Donkey out of winter hibernation this weekend. Off for a service (yikes!) Then off to Spa in few weeks time to stretch its legs on the 2 trackdays on March 23rd and 24th!

Can't wait

[heavyearly76]

Which do you prefer Chris? Your 599 or a 2008/2009 Aston DBS? I've been considering these options for a while now. I've driven a 599 for a few hours; perfect engine note and power but a check engine light was present the entire time. Also, I'm not sure I could afford the transmission maintenance . I do enjoy "old school" design so the DBS may be for me after all... Your opinions??? Thanks

Edited by heavyearly76 on Thursday 28th February 14:39

[rtz62]

A bit of a harsh appraisal of a 575 (and, ergo, a 550) Mr Harris.
Is this a cunning plan to raise the value of your 599 by belittling those models?
And is it because of their tubular chassis? If so, I don't see the accusing finger point at a 'Birdcage' Maserati etc.....

[Parax]

tomoleeds said:

Just wondered if depreciation was high at this age of a 599.

You could try the usual sources http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/prices/used/ferrari/...

[toppstuff]

Beautiful , beautiful car.

It is interesting how fearful people can be around the notion of owning one of these.

Depreciation, running costs are never far from people's minds.

I fear the market in these is quite thin. It's not liquid. But it's equally possible that I know nothing.

If you want to get rid fast I think it could be easy to get bid way, way down.

This is a car to own , enjoy and keep for a while IMO, not a car to take a punt on and then move on without losing too much.

A proper supercar though.

[anonymous-user]

So, you spend a couple of hundred thousand pounds on a car and get a cheapo plastic battery isolator switch you can buy for £4.99 on ebay! At least AML have the decency of fitting a proper contactor controlled by an On/Off button to isolate the battery.

[krispe]

Sell it Chris, buy a new Cayman, (you know you want to really), spend the difference on more Rallying exploits!!!

[BBS-LM]

I would rather of kept the 4.0 GT3 RS any day of the week. That was just special.

[DeltaEvo2]

Epic!

[GTiFrank]

Thanks for sharing.

[STIfree]

Are 599's really that 'cheap' now?

Seems a lot of car for 80k, what where they new, 160k?

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/f...

[mike325112]

Chris Harris said:

One of the great joys of owning a once very expensive car which has depreciated like warm ice-cream...

....The 599 remains the best £80-£90k sportscar by a country mile.

Once very expensive! At £80-£90k, Oh how the other half live!

I jest, having read about Mr Harris's car financing in the past I see how he's managed to do it for reasonable ammounts, I just wish I had the bottle or resources to do similar.

[Greg 172]

mike325112 said:

Once very expensive! At £80-£90k, Oh how the other half live!

I jest, having read about Mr Harris's car financing in the past I see how he's managed to do it for reasonable ammounts, I just wish I had the bottle or resources to do similar.

But even if you can find a way to make the finance work, you've still got to run the bloody thing! I can't imagine it's all that affordable...

[RicksAlfas]

beach kid said:

Ferrari must have used the same wheel nut supplier as Porsche used for my 996!

I bet it's the same one Alfa use. They always have rusty nuts too.

[DanielSan]

Greg 172 said:

But even if you can find a way to make the finance work, you've still got to run the bloody thing! I can't imagine it's all that affordable...

I'd hazard a guess that some of the costs could be described as frightening

[grosserbaby]

I note "the next day I did 320 miles" now everyone is talking about depreciation but how much was that in gogo juice? Having said that, I know I would do just the same if I could.