Early California - values and questions
Discussion
With a little luck I should be in a position to acquire an early California next year. Have a few questions...
These seem to start around £50k for non-CAT examples at the moment. Are the values likely to fall any/much further or is that about as low as they'll go? Will they potentially even start to appreciate again? Are the ones at that end of the market likely to be troublesome, even with lowish miles and FSH?
I've checked the PH buyer's guide and one or two others, I don't see much in terms of common problems but perhaps some with long term experience know better? Some suggestion that they're hard on batteries?
Running costs - I'm used to thirsty cars that like to eat rear tyres, have a handle on regular servicing costs, anything I should budget for assuming a 2008-2010 car starting with 30-50k miles?
We have other cars in the household so not intending to use the California as a daily driver, plus I work from home so no commute, but if I was to do a few short trips per week do they dislike that or no issue?
I understand the infotainment unit to be fairly dated, I take it there are some options to swap that out - what do owners recommend?
Anything else I should know?
Thanks in advance
These seem to start around £50k for non-CAT examples at the moment. Are the values likely to fall any/much further or is that about as low as they'll go? Will they potentially even start to appreciate again? Are the ones at that end of the market likely to be troublesome, even with lowish miles and FSH?
I've checked the PH buyer's guide and one or two others, I don't see much in terms of common problems but perhaps some with long term experience know better? Some suggestion that they're hard on batteries?
Running costs - I'm used to thirsty cars that like to eat rear tyres, have a handle on regular servicing costs, anything I should budget for assuming a 2008-2010 car starting with 30-50k miles?
We have other cars in the household so not intending to use the California as a daily driver, plus I work from home so no commute, but if I was to do a few short trips per week do they dislike that or no issue?
I understand the infotainment unit to be fairly dated, I take it there are some options to swap that out - what do owners recommend?
Anything else I should know?
Thanks in advance
The expensive liabilities on the Calis are the roof and the DCT gearbox. Find one which has had a recent DCT rebuild. Otherwise, budget c.£10-15k for a rebuild at some point.
The Cali was the first DCT equipped Ferrari and the gearboxes weren’t adequately cooled. Combined with bad material choices (tie wraps which become brittle with heat) in the gearbox internal wiring, it’s a question of when, not if, the DCT in a Cali will fail.
As far as the roof is concerned, just check operation and alignment. Sounds obvious but worth reiterating thay as a result, you should avoid cars with any accident damage history at the back end of the car.
The Cali was the first DCT equipped Ferrari and the gearboxes weren’t adequately cooled. Combined with bad material choices (tie wraps which become brittle with heat) in the gearbox internal wiring, it’s a question of when, not if, the DCT in a Cali will fail.
As far as the roof is concerned, just check operation and alignment. Sounds obvious but worth reiterating thay as a result, you should avoid cars with any accident damage history at the back end of the car.
ANOpax said:
The expensive liabilities on the Calis are the roof and the DCT gearbox. Find one which has had a recent DCT rebuild. Otherwise, budget c.£10-15k for a rebuild at some point.
The Cali was the first DCT equipped Ferrari and the gearboxes weren t adequately cooled. Combined with bad material choices (tie wraps which become brittle with heat) in the gearbox internal wiring, it s a question of when, not if, the DCT in a Cali will fail.
As far as the roof is concerned, just check operation and alignment. Sounds obvious but worth reiterating thay as a result, you should avoid cars with any accident damage history at the back end of the car.
Many thanks. Regards the transmission, are there symptoms to look out for which would indicate impending failure? Do they tend to fail once any sort of specific age or mileage is reached or can it happen almost any time?The Cali was the first DCT equipped Ferrari and the gearboxes weren t adequately cooled. Combined with bad material choices (tie wraps which become brittle with heat) in the gearbox internal wiring, it s a question of when, not if, the DCT in a Cali will fail.
As far as the roof is concerned, just check operation and alignment. Sounds obvious but worth reiterating thay as a result, you should avoid cars with any accident damage history at the back end of the car.
As for the folding roof, is it reasonably safe to assume that an example with a working roof at the time of purchase should be OK or is that likely to simply go wrong at some point?
The symptoms of impending transmission failure can manifest themselves in a number of ways. There could be electrical error messages and manettino failure error messages. Or sometimes, failure to change gear properly or the loss of all even, or all odd gears.
There is no rhyme or reason which will point to the time at which the DCT fails. Too much abuse could be as bad as a lack of use. The one major point which would extend the life of the components would be a car which has been sympathetically driven and allowed to cool properly before and after shutdown. Unfortunately, that’s almost impossible to prove.
There aren t usually any warning signs of roof failure but it s worth checking the smooth and proper operation multiple times and on multiple occasions and while parked on different surfaces etc.
There is no rhyme or reason which will point to the time at which the DCT fails. Too much abuse could be as bad as a lack of use. The one major point which would extend the life of the components would be a car which has been sympathetically driven and allowed to cool properly before and after shutdown. Unfortunately, that’s almost impossible to prove.
There aren t usually any warning signs of roof failure but it s worth checking the smooth and proper operation multiple times and on multiple occasions and while parked on different surfaces etc.
Edited by ANOpax on Thursday 6th November 14:58
Chris355 said:
Does the Cali T have the same DCT issues as the early Cali?
Ferrari added an oil cooler to the Cali T and by the time it came out, the brittle tie wrap problems had been identified and solved. So a T will have a much lower chance of DCT failure than a non-T. However, that doesn’t mean that the T’s DCT won’t fail at all, it’s just likely to fail at a much later date than a non-T.
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