Ferrari 550

It was service time this month and, to make matters worse, it was the big one, the one that demands a tick in every box on the job card (new gearbox oil, brake fluid change, carbon filter thingys, etc, etc) before they'll allow it to leave the workshop. The service manager was kind enough to warn me the bill might end up around £1900 - provided there were no extras. I've bought cars for less than that in the past - and they were good ones, too.

The only fly in the ointment? It's June and in Ferrari fairyland that's the month every other Fezza owner chooses to have their car serviced. As I'm beginning to understand, Ferraris aren't like other cars; the vast majority tend to hibernate inside cocoons for most of the year, only emerging once the motoring season kicks into action, often with a trip to Le Mans. So it's a bit of a rush down at Dick Lovett's this month and I'm forced to wait my turn. In the end it takes 25 days from the initial phone-call to the time the car finally goes on the ramp, although half the delay was caused by me asking for the car to be picked up from home, meaning they had to weave lorry availability into the workshop logistics.

Two days later there's an unbelievably shiny Ferrari outside my house (even the insides of the wheelarches are now polished black) but I'm also £1706.10 poorer. What's more, Lovett's couldn't look into a possible syncro problem on third gear that I'd reported; apparently the mechanic wouldn't drive the car due to the rear tyres being illegal! Good grief, knackered tyres after just ten weeks and fewer than 5000 miles of commuting; to coin a popular phrase, 'I don't believe it!'.

Running Costs