[chris355spider]

Guys,

As many of you probably know, I am new to the ferrari life and have invested over £50K in a F355 spider! Today I had a shock though and am now very worried! I have done a total of 2000 miles since I have had my car, I took it back to the gatage after about 750 miles and they said oil levels were good and did a few minor repairs. Today I have checked the oil again after obviously 1250 miles. It was just under the minimum. Now I have to admit I have opened her up a lot more than I had been due to knowing what she does and the buitliful noise she makes through her de-catted lungs and Tubi Syle X-box. I must say I have never pushed her past 8 on the gadge and do not coinsider anything I have done to be ragging her!

Is 2 litres of oil normal though...? I only get a slight bit of condensation on start up with no blue smoke and earlier I even got my girlfriend to blip the through throttle whilst I watched, she took it to 5K and no sign of a blue puff. Is this normal? There are also no leaks whatsoever with the car sat in a gartage at least 5 days in ia row.

Whats the score guys? Oh and also before buying it I had a compression test which came out and 92 per cylinder from 1-7 and 91 on 8.

Im I worring needlessly or is it about to meet its maker?

I await your feedback with just about every bone that can be crossed!

Regards

Chris

 

[Boxer]

No, that is not normal but......when and how did you check the oil level???

To get an accurate reading it must be done immediately after you turn the car off when the engine was been at full normal running tempature (suggest you take a look at the following related thread http://www.ferrarilife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5149) If you wait 5-10 minutes the oil level will have begun to drop and you will get a false low reading. Overfilling based on a false low is also not a healthy situation....

In my experience F355's do not eat oil.

 

[CW355]

Chris,

How many miles has you 355 done?

What type and brand of oil are you using?

I've had my 355 only for a month now, and no drama's yet but my experience with my 308 was that it hardly used a drop of oil around town.
But as soon as I thrashed it around the track for the day (20-30laps max)
it could use up to 2L of oil.

I always use higher visocity than recommended on older engines and the
355's are just about 10yrs old, so I see how my 355 performs the Oil test.

 

[chris355spider]

Guys thanks for your comments, after a bit of research and also consulting the 355 handbook I can give you some factual stats. A 355 does use some oil, it should consume betweem .22 to .44 of a litre of oil every 500 - 600 K.

The last comments about driving in town as to giving it some stick also remains true with the 355, if you drive around not letting the revs go much past 5000 you will find it uses no oil, and once you get it up in the rev range it will start to use a bit... not really burning it, it seems, it is unlikely to puff blue smoke but it just seems to get eaten up.

I had some good and bad news about mine... the good news was that it was not just using as much oil as i thought but instead droping it out the bottom due to a leak from the gearbox to the engine. There was no oil droped in the garage but obviously when the car was hot and was high in the rev range the 5w - 30 w oil was spraying out the back of the car.

My 355 is 10 years old exactly and has only covered 23,000 miles and is in beautiful condition, but I have found out a new problem about bearings in the clutch, apparently they were modified from 97'. My clutch had started to stick and as a result wore it out in around 800 miles. So I have been to D K Engineering in Watford and they are doing all the work. However they have found that due to the old version of the bearing it all needs replacing even the nose cone for the clutch.

So all in all about 2.5K to sort the car out! Good job i am still in love with it!

Regards

Chris