Ferrari Mondial . Net

Hi, my name is Steve I know very little about cars in general, but somehow I bought a Ferrari and survived. Here are my tips based on my experiences, I hope they help. If they do please let me know by adding a comment to my blog, dropping me a line, or sending me cash. If anything I have said is total bull$h!t then let me know too, I’m happy to be corrected and learn things in the process! As I said I don’t claim to be any kind of expert, but I have been through the whole experience and come out with a decent car, so must have done something right!

First of all read some existing guides, as I will try to cover things
not already mentioned by these:

http://users.skynet.be/sky38711/allfiles/garfiles/fer308bg.htm

http://reviews.ebay.com/Ferrari-Buying-Guide-The-quot-Affordable-quot-Ferraris_W0QQugidZ10000000000790118

If you know a bit about engines then this is also a great guide to read (the 308/328 info is directly applicable to the Mondial as it’s the same engine):

http://www.rosneathengineering.co.uk/advice.html#308

Colour

Colour definately affects the price, a classic example is Verdi Ferrari had (and maybe still have) an 1984 Mondial, California Azzurro (Blue), 15100 (!) miles on their website for £18k, when I enquired about it I was told it was now £16k. I can safely say if it was in red it would have been sold ages ago (and for £18k!). I guess that as it’s a lot of people’s first Ferrari the colour has to bed red (right!?), plus most people would argue that the only colour for a Ferrari is red (or maybe yellow too!)!

Owners, Age and Mileage

Watch out for lowly prices Mondials, be sure to find out if it’s a Mondial 8, QV, 3.2 or t (well if it’s a t you will know as it will be £20k+). I saw a Mondial 8 for around £10k, digging deeper it had almost 20 owners in 24 years, this told me something straight away! I’d say the average for an approx 20 year old Ferrari is 5-8, my Mondial had 3 owners in 22 years. I’d also say average mileage about 2500miles a year, so for a 22 year old Mondial that would be around 55000 miles on the clock.

Models

The 3.2 Mondial has a little bit more power (30hp) than the standard Mondial QV (1983-1985), in the 308 world it’s the 328 vs the 308. Steer clear of the original Mondial 8 as it doesn’t have the QV engine and is under powered. If buying a 308 watch out for the GTBi, it’s the Mondial 8 of the 308s, the carb or QV 308 will have more engine power (but also be £5k more!), but then again it is still a beautiful car and as long as the price reflects the *slightly* lower power then that’s ok in my opinion!

Mondial info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_Mondial

Comparison stats here: http://www.dropbears.com/m/models/ferrari/mondial.htm

There is probably not much difference in real world performance between the 3.0 QV and the 3.2 QV, except you probably get less mpg out of the 3.2 with the slightly bigger engine! The stying of the 3.2 suits a lot of people more though with the smaller, body coloured bumpers & more visible front grill, however something people don’t mention is the slight changes in the alloy wheels on the 3.2… I don’t like them, I prefer the original 8/QV alloys (though it’s only small differences).

The Mondial ‘t’ was the final evolution of the series, with a bigger, 3.4 litre, 300bhp, dry sump engine allowing a lower, longitudinal mounting and thus improved handling. Power steeting and ABS also appeared on these models making it the ultimate Mondial. However one important point to note is that with the longitudinally mounted engine the cam belt changes (recommended every three years) require the engine to be removed. If you were planning to do this job yourself (as quite a few 308/328/Mondial QV owners do) this probably rules the job out, unless you have access to some serious lifting gear! On the other hand if you were planning to have a garage do the timing belt change then it’s not the end of the world, but the cost will have likely doubled (eg from approx £350 to £800, see example here how the Mondial t pricing is grouped with the 348/355 due to the similar engine layout). A plus point is Mondial ts should also have normal tyres/wheels (not Michelin TRX, see below for explanation).

Driving

I don’t have a lot to compare it to as have only driven “normal” cars before, but you do drive with a smile on your face and you get a *lot* of people looking, even police & green eyed porche drivers (after all no one really looks twice at a porche do they?). For me it’s incredibly fast to drive, and sticks to the road, though it is 22 years old after all and I’m sure there are plenty of turbo charged Japanese cars and 50 grand BMWs (driven by fat, balding business men who still think they are hot stuff) that could beat it, but at the end of the day you are in a Ferrari: you don’t have to drive fast! I did notice that I got a lot more respect on the road, for example on the motorway in my normal day to day car (Fiat Punto) when I would normally have someone tailgating me if I was overtaking in the outside lane, people now stayed back. Also with the Ferrari people hear the roar of the engine and see the very low red object in their rear view mirror they usually move over instantly. It’s quite fun (and slightly embarrasing) to see literally a whole row of cars pulling into the middle lane of the motorway on seeing me approaching in their rear view mirrors! I think it’s down to the fact that Ferrari engines rev so highly, when you start accelerating over 5000 revs the whole world really does know you mean business. On the downside you will get a very small number of idiotic drivers (usually in Audis, BMWs & Porches) trying to “race” you at lights and on motorways… resist!

Insurance

A Ferrari isn’t really too practical as a day to day car, but that means you can take advantage of classic insurance. You will have a mileage limit (eg 3000 or 4500 miles per year) and have to keep the car in a locked garage (sensible anyway!). Not very surprisingly all Ferraris are group 20 (the highest), but my insurance from Footman James is £380 a year, fully comp, agreed value £15000, inc breakdown cover. Given that I’m 32 that’s not bad. One point: if you have lots of claims and more than 6 or sometimes even 3 points on your license you probably won’t be able to get classic insurance, so drive carefully whatever car you are in!

Footman James: http://www.footmanjames.co.uk
Hagerty: http://www.hagerty.com/

Wheels and Tyres

Most Mondials had Michelin TRX tyres fitted as standard, the was an experiment in metric wheel sizes in the 80s and never caught on, so now there are only one or two places you can buy these tyres. They are £300+ each! So one thing to look for if you are buying is if the car has these tyres how worn are they, as a full set will set you back over £1200. Having said that if you are only doing 3000 miles a year or so then new ones, or ones with lots of tread left, should last you. Grip isn’t as good as modern tyres of the same size as tyre technology has moved on in 20 years, but they are not bad. Older rubber can be cracked though and need replacement irrespective of tread so watch for that. My tip is to check the spare wheel under the front bonnet, it’s a full size alloy wheel and it may have a fresh tyre on it which would mean you might as well put it on the car when you are changing the other front or back tyre to, so you only have to buy one tyre. Not much point in having a fresh tyre on the spare wheel, slowly going off. If it’s always been stored in the safety of the Mondial front boot it’s likely never been exposed to the elements, but as always be sure to check it’s year and condition. If you have time and are lucky you might be able to find some good condition TRX tyres on ebay, but don’t rely on it, and again be sure the seller indicates the year of manufacture, as you could still end up buying 20 year old tyres! At least try to get some manufactured this millennium

Check the tire DOT code, you can quickly see if the tires are original (thus possibly 20+ years old) or whether they have been replaced. Remember tire technology has evolved a lot in this time. You will get far more grip on a modern design tire that has fresh rubber compared to a Michelin TRX made from 20 year old rubber. This is really important to remember when driving a powerful, rear/mid engine car like a Ferrari, so be sure to check the condition and ages of tyres on older Ferraris as they are the only thing keeping you glued to the road.

One thing many Mondial/308 owners do is take off the metric wheels and replace them with replica imperial wheels, letting them use standard tyres that are more like £150 a tyre. A new set of replacement, replica wheels will cost you £1000 but that’s the same price as a set of TRXs and then would save on future tyre purchases. *however* there are some drawbacks of doing this:

• the new, replica wheels will be heavier alloys: the original Ferrari alloy wheels are lighter and stronger. There are reports of the replica wheels breaking up at very high speeds. I guess it depends on the ones you buy, and how hard you plan to drive, you get what you pay for… SpeedLine alloy wheels are generally accepted as worthy replacements
• the replica wheels may not be an exact style match for the ones you are replacing: replica ones seem to be styled more like the Mondial 3.2 wheels, not the original Mondial 8/QV/308 wheels (which I personally prefer!)
• you are putting the car into a non-original state: your Mondial is likely to be 20+ years old now, so it’s starting to fall into “classic” territory. If you plan to sell it to an enthusiast in future then you will get more if everything is in it’s original state, and things have not been tinkered with. So if you do decide to replace the original wheels don’t flog them on ebay for a few quid, keep them so they can be put back on at a later date if needed.

Michelin TRX info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelin_trx
Michelin Website TRX Page:
http://www.michelin-passion.com/passion/front/templates/affich.jsp?codeRubrique=43&lang=EN

Private Seller vs Dealer

Private: I’d say have a check done by a garage or bring a friend who knows lots about mechanics of cars as there are no doubt Mondials to avoid (as with buying any car). Do an HPI check early (www.mycarcheck.com £10). Look for private sellers who are genuine enthusiasts, have had it a while have spent money on the car, had the minor services and major services done on time (annual 3k-6k miles, major 18k, cam belts (aka timing belts) every 3 years), are owners’ club members who have actively attended Ferrari shows & meetings, after all these tend to be quite far away so they must have driven there with no problems, plus no one turns up at these kind of shows in tatty wrecks!

Dealer: You are probably a bit safer, though I’d look for a reputable one that deals exclusively in marque sports cars. They are unlikely to be selling dodgy cars and will have a reputation that they won’t want damaged. They will most likely have had the car inspected beforehand anyway. They should offer some kind of warranty on the major parts too (and probably try to sell you a very expensive extended warranty plan that still won’t cover the thing that goes wrong if something does break!).

Bodywork

• Rust: look out for wheel arches, sunroof surround, A pillars, rear lights panel, front under spoiler (from bottoming out the front, or knocking into high kerbs) . The odd rust boil is not uncommon, but look under the arch to see if it’s more extensive, and steer clear if it is. I’m not an expert on rust but I know it’s a bad thing
• Re-sprays from crash damage: there are so many grills and fins on Ferrari’s you can usually spot where a respray has been done and the paint has not quite covered the deeper parts of the grills.
• Stone chips: curse of the low profile front, there are usually millions on the bonnets of all the Ferrari’s I’ve seen, watch out for deep ones that have gone to the metal, these would have to be painted with primer to avoid rust developing.
• Glass: Corners of windscreen and the back window can have patches of milkyness, not sure what causes this, but I did meet a Mondial owner who had a severe case (very noticable and large patch) of it in the back window glass, behind the passenger seats: the quote for a replacement glass back window was the price of a small car, so watch out for that. I’m guessing windscreens would not be so bad, but the back window glass is a very unusual, curved shape.
• Windows: Check they all open and close, including the sunroof. My sunroof always sticks on closing, but a well timed manual shove with my hand gets it over the sticky bit. Passenger electric window can be slow and sometimes not close at all but there are fixes for this (see my blog).
• Bonnets: Bonnets usually always needs a slam to close, especially the boot for some reason, plus the penumatic struts that keep the bonnets up while you poke around will likely have given up the ghost, but these can be replaced (£14 a pair or each, something like that).

Other Stuff

One thing to note is that when warming a Mondial up from cold one of the exhaust pipes will produce more vapour (right hand side) than the other until the engine and exhast get up to normal operating temperature. This is obviously more noticable on cooler days, and is caused by the different lengths of the manifolds from the engine to the exhaust. This shouldn’t happen on a Mondial t due to the longitudinally mounted engine.

Check headlights pop up and work, check aircon (may need re-charging), check for original Ferrari toolkit (usually located in with the spare wheel). Check for original medical kit (in compartment between rear passenger seats), doesn’t add much to the value but an interesting, original part of the car. Original keys and leather bound owner’s manual good to have too.

Steve

• 21 September 2007
• Update 09 April 2008 [Tyre DOT codes, rust areas]
• Update 01 October 2008 [Mondial t cambelt info, exhaust vapour info, Rosneath engine info link]