UDel

Most of that engineering goes just to performance which is why Ferrari is usually tops in that category.

Reliability and durability are not very big concerns to Ferrari engineers/design hence all their known reliability issues and enormous/complicated maintenance costs yet they still sell. Since a typical Ferrari owner puts very little miles on them and they are often sold only after a few years of ownership they can get away with this. Ferrari's catching on fire is not new though, I have read and heard about for a long time.

I still don't understand how some manufactures make and people buy such expensive unreliable cars that cost a fortune to maintain but when people have the money to afford a Ferrari they don't seem to care about all the issues with them and the insane cost of maintaining them.

gengar

It is really scary - and not just for 458/Ferrari owners, but Ferrari as well. Imagine the liability when someone finally gets hurt or killed in one of these ignition incidents, especially given the number of 458s that have gone up in flames not to mention the past tendency of other Ferrari vehicles to do so. 5 out of 1248 is a 0.4% ignition rate - imagine 0.4% of any other vehicle going up in flames. Even for a single generation and model designation, that'd be thousands of Camrys or Accords. Makes unintended acceleration, even at absurdly inflated report numbers, look insignificant.

It's good that Ferrari is at least admitting that there are serious design flaws with the 458 and they are taking the right steps to protect consumers, and this is the right choice for the company too.


It's largely the same as how BMW (and Benz, especially in the 90s and early part of the 2000s) are able to produce unreliable vehicles and still manage to make up a huge portion of luxury sales. In any case, you largely answer your own question: Ferrari, like BMW, doesn't have to worry about reliability to make sales - and that's as good a reason as any to avoid certain brands like the plague.

Most Ferrari buyers are there for the image and not the performance. I don't even think it's so much that Ferrari buyers have tons of extra cash, but that because they buy a car for poser status, factors like maintenance fees and unreliability (and I suppose the possibility that their cars may go up in flames during normal operation) go out the window in their considerations.

Even before I committed to buying an LFA, I've said for a long time (including on this forum) that one of the big factors in my hesitation to purchase a Ferrari is that the community sucks and is full of posers. One of the sales guys at Wynn/Penske in LV once told me that the "vast majority" of their 360 and F430 buyers do not even know the placement of the engine. So, we're talking about people who aren't even getting anywhere close to caring about the driving experience or dynamics that a car can provide - they don't know (and worse, don't even care to know) the most basic aspects of the car before buying one.

Certainly, I won't criticize any company for taking advantage of having customers who absolutely must have products of their specific brand.

TRDFantasy

Great to see Ferrari (for once) recall one of its models due to fire risks. Unfortunately this must be terrible for owners, and looks bad on Ferrari.

As usual, the magazines will remain silent and not mention a word about this in supercar comparisons.

gengar

Another 458 burns up in Brazil. No word yet on whether the 458 had already gone through the recall process. Pretty moronic to drive a 458 without having the recall done, I'd think.

http://wreckedexotics.com/articles/056-458-brazil.shtml

Dave600hL

If it did have the recall done, then I think it scary thought as if Ferrari actually knows what is causing them?

knihc2008

iTrader: (1)

I recognize that Ferrari does most of its testing on the performance side of things, but if these people are just driving around randomly and having their 458's go on fire, you'd think one of Ferrari's hard-tested 458's would have gone on fire too.

07grIS350

It looks like this car did receive the recall treatment.

This latest fire closely resembles one from July 14th in Switzerland. As you can see, it looks like the fire originated in the same place and resulted in the same damage patterns. If it turns out this car had already gone through the recall repair, Ferrari will have some tough questions to answer.

I did not read this properly. It said IF..., however, someone on another website said the owner claimed the car went in for the recall.

iRock

iTrader: (12)

This crazy that such an expensive car could just catch on fire... hope no one gets killed in this

rominl

iTrader: (4)

hahah so the recall didn't fix the problem?

j three

I think the reason this didn't show up in testing is because the car was constantly going at high speeds letting the air circulate in the engine compartment. It looks like all the other cars were on regular surface streets, driving at low speed and allowing the heat to build up. Sexy car but this is a real bad problem . I think I'll take the McLaren thank you.

LexFather

The Pinto is somewhere laughing

gengar

Word on the street is that the Ferrari dealership in Brazil that sold the car claims that the 458 was a new model that was supposed to have been delivered with the fixes already in place. It'll be interesting when more definitive information comes out...

gengar

This theory may have some merit; I read on another forum that apparently the 458 fix includes a revised air outlet from the engine compartment in addition to replacement of the wheel arch adhesive. This lends credence to speculation I read that the adhesive is not the catalyst, but simply a flammable substance that propagated fire to a catastrophic state only after the engine area got too hot (either way, still a design flaw).

Certainly, Ferrari should probably be revising its testing procedures, although the risk of these types of events is probably a given with high-performance supercars. I sure hope the LFA is free of them - perhaps this is one of the benefits of a very lengthy development and test cycle as we've had with the LFA, what with at least one of the LFAs being driven around on the track and open roads for probably almost a year now.

I still wouldn't choose the MP4-12C over the 458, but certainly this episode makes me seriously question buying any future Ferrari vehicles. Even if Ferrari replaces the ruined 458s, it is not only inconvenient for customers, but these are customers who likely paid massive premiums to get their 458s so early in the production cycle. And as I mentioned before, this problem (if unsolved) is a serious liability issue that Ferrari cannot ignore.

TRDFantasy

Clearly, Ferrari's testing is not as "hard" as its marketing claims to be. Otherwise, this problem would have, and should have shown up in testing.

This further reinforces the stereotype that Ferraris specifically are unreliable. It certainly doesn't help Ferrari's image of unreliable products.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

Ferrari has always had poor reliability, but that never stopped people from buying them. Most of them end up being garage queens and are only taken out on a Saturday night from 7:15-7:45 with the engine barely over 2500 RPM.

The fire shouldn't have happened in the first place, but I don't see the 458's flaw keeping customers away.