My Ferrari F430 Spider F1 Ownership Diary

You can't beat a Sunday morning blat. Up to Wantage over the Ridgeway on the B4494 - the oft used PH review 'track' - through Wantage, Vale of the White Horse, Lambourn, Avebury, Marlborough, Hungerford and back home. 70 odd miles and just over two hours. I really do need to get myself a GoPro!

 

Time for an update on the hottest weekend of the year so far without access to the car that I should be blatting around the countryside in, enjoying said glorious weather – more on that in a bit.

Haven’t used it that much this year so far although I did finally take it overseas to Champagne for a few days last month, just to buy some champagne because you have to, right?

It was a bittersweet journey as the four days away was for me and the car just to have a bit of fun, stay in a nice place, go for a few drives around Champagne, drink some champagne, buy some champagne and go home having ticked a box. Unfortunately, my wife, who was in Croatia catching up with family, had to put our five month old cocker spaniel pup, Freddie, to sleep after he ate a bone that eventually had to be surgically removed from his oesophagus. His wounds broke down and so we made the horrible decision to put him out of his misery as he was really suffering.



In the end she came to France from Croatia and we met up at Chateau d'Etoges just south of Epernay and consoled each other over little Freddie and mooched around, totally fed up. The weather wasn’t great either so the trip kind of fell over itself. Bugger. Still, it was good to get it overseas and see how it performs and whilst it’s eminently capable on a long journey you do get a hankering for a proper GT car like a Roma, GTC4 Lusso or similar (proper bucks mind). In the end the journey was pretty tedious as it was just one long autoroute to just south of Reims. I probably could have livened it up a bit by going ‘off piste’ but it was hacking down with rain so wouldn’t have made much difference. Italy next month should be more interesting.



So why no car this weekend? Picked it up on Friday and after a quick hoon I noticed the exhaust was making funny farting noises again. Quick check and the bloody sensor had come loose again, so not funny. Rang Dick Lovett and gave them a hard time so they moved some stuff around so I could bring it down on Sat morning for them to fix. Got there at 0830 and then after it had cooled down discovered that some ham-fisted moron had stripped the threads when they replaced it last time it came out. No weekend funsies for me then.

Not a happy bunny. Service bloke equally unhappy and somewhat apologetic. Car is now with them whilst they order a new one from the States.



On the upside, we had a new arrival two weeks ago. Whilst in France I asked my wife when she wanted to start looking for another pup and she simply said, ‘Now.’ Got back from Frogland on the Friday and found a pup on the Saturday. Saw him the same day and picked Ozzie up two weeks ago. We miss Freddie terribly but Ozzie’s a cool guy and very very welcome. Besides, wife is happy so all is good in the world.

 

As soon as I posted this I remember that I went to the National Ferrari Owners Club Day at Sywell Aerodrome and the verdict is it was an utter borefest. The weather was crap and I had an early start as I'd booked a couple of runway runs and had to be there for 0830 for briefings, etc. The day itself didn't start until 1000 so god knows why we had to be there so early. Did the first run at around 0930 and to be honest whilst it was fun getting up to 150ish it was over as quickly as it started so I then had to hang around until about 1300 for the next run.

In between the weather didn't get any better and after you've seen one Ferrari and reminded that you'll never own one of the more recent models you just get a bit bored with it really. There was nothing to do apart from eat heavily fried food, drink coffee, bid on a car at an auction or book a Spitfire experience flight that started at around £3.5k. Yeah, right. I binned the last runway run and buggered off home at around 1130. I think it's ok if you know people and have deep pockets to buy stuff but beyond that, pfft.

 

Aye, it's getting a bit tedious, even caught myself looking at McLarens the other day.

 

Perhaps not then!

 

An update. Car was eventually with Dick Lovett for three weeks while they sourced more parts from the US. Pretty annoyed about the whole thing as I missed the Goodwood Fellowship Breakfast Club (my first since signing up) in the middle weekend. Picked the car up three weeks ago, quick drive and all was well.Took the car out the next weekend for a proper hoon and the bloody thing threw another EML. Cleared it by disconnecting the battery and took it back to DL the following Friday (I had to pick up a wheel bolt adapter), scanned it and the error was 'lambda sensor too slow to react.' The only real option left is to put the old manifolds back on or consider a complete aftermarket system. I've since done around 200 miles and it's stayed off so we'll see.

Maintenance wise I've just replaced all four Pirellis with Michelin Pilot Sport 4s for just under £1k (DL quoted £1600, what is it with dealers?). Only difference I've really noticed is that the back is a lot more stable under hard acceleration but then the Pirellis were pretty much at the and of their life. A knocking sound has developed from the front end and this is absolutely not a surprise - ball joints. They're generally considered to be a consumable and I had them done when I first got the car so 7k miles ago which isn't bad considering some people only get 3k out of them. Car is booked in with AV Engineering for October.

Big news is I'm off to Italy next Friday with the car and really looking forward to it! Plan so far is dep UK sparrow's fart Saturday via Eurotunnel for a place just north of Strasbourg stopping at Reims-Gueux for a photo op. Sunday we'll take the Route 500 through the Black Forest to Wassen in Switzerland for an overnight stop, just at the foot of the Susten Pass. We plan to drive the pass in the afternoon - fingers crossed.

On Monday we'll make our way to Lake Garda for our hols proper but along the way we'll drive the Furka Pass, Grimsel and back towards Airolo via the Nufenen Pass. That's a lot of passes and a lot of fuel I'll bet. I'll be sure to post up some photos and clips off the GoPro, I just hope nothing goes wrong with either car!

 

I know what you're saying but ultimately it's a 15 year old supercar and it's inevitable that it will need stuff doing to it to keep it running, no different to any other 15 year old car I guess. Biggest difference is the cost of keeping it running!