Sticky buttons

I’ve had a 458 Italia since 2013, and have never experienced this issue. It’s always been in a temp controlled Garage when not driven. I also own a 16M and have never had this issue. I’ve seen it in plenty of cars, but still don’t get why this happens. Does it only happen if the car is left in the sun or with tons of moisture?

 

Sorry to deliver the bad news but your days are numbered. Sad, but true.

 

Everyone keeps saying that, but I have one Car almost 10yrs old, and another 5 years old and haven’t had the issues. I’ve owned them both from the start...one thing o have experienced onthe 16M is the foggy headlight covers. Don’t understand that one

 

My buddies 2013 458 is fine, for now (thank god coz I will need to fix it), my 2013 Maserati is getting tacky.

Trust me, put my number on speed dial, your days are numbered

 

One think I noticed on my 575 and my 430 is that this condition practically happened over night. Both cars were fine then one day became tacky and within the month I had black goo on my hands. You are lucky for now.

 

Whats the turn around ?
Not questioning your prediction but if the do fail couldn't you have a set readily available and just swap when a customer needs them to speed the process ? I did this with another company for a faceplate of a HVAC MR2 and basically turn around was nearly 10 weeks

 

Guys - I can't claim to have ever used Dave's services, but when and if I need it, I won't hesitate to call on him. He offers the very best solution and top notch quality. Having said that, by all means, if you don't need his services, then there's no need to debate things. If the day comes that you do, whenever that may happen, he'll do a great job for you at a fair price.

 

Turn around is an interesting topic. Right now it's ridiculous to some. People want magic tricks and want stuff back in a week. Yet, if they want a car restored it takes years and they are generally cool with that.

Our turn around is based on back log when your parts arrive. It can be a couple months when we are busy. We are always busy. We are hiring more staff but guys that can do this work don't grow on trees

 

I’m new here and maybe I should shut up. But how does Ferrari sell half million dollar cars with interiors it knows will turn into sticky goo?

We know the downside, and it’s not pretty. What’s the upside? Why continue using this material?

 

I may be a severe pessimist - but my gut tells me that it's the following:

1 - Laziness - they just don't care enough to demand a higher standard from their suppliers.
2 - Long standing and protected relationships. I have no institutional knowledge, but I'm guessing that the suppliers (and the buyers at Ferrari) are the same people for the past many years. Good pals who simply perpetuate this.

Again, I could be way off base here, but that's what my gut tells me.

 

I love these cars. I guess this is a hill I will choose not to die on, but man this is perplexing. Evidences a total disregard for customers and maybe even worse, indifferent sloppy engineering.

 

Nothing to do with laziness. Nothing to do with the subs - the subs are required to follow the guidelines of the OEM.

As I said above, when new, the coating is very nice and mar resistant. It self levels and hides defects in molded parts. Someone at the top is making the decision that the short term gain is more important than the long term failure.

It's arrogance, not laziness.

For the record, I have some soft touch coming in from our manufacture to test (told it will never fail - checks in the mail?). We need to use it in a couple very specific applications that require flex. It won't be used anywhere else

 

Your backlog is months? That’s an awesome problem to have... but when time comes it wouldn’t work for me. Not looking to have my car sit disassembled and not drivable for months. It’s only a matter of time before someone comes along and fixes this problem in a few days and not months. Just my 2 cents.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

With the most due respect, you clearly don't understand what goes into doing this work. It's not a couple hour job. It's extremely labor intensive. Between primers and top coats we spray somewhere around 10-12 different coatings, granted most orders needs about 4.

We also do business all over the world.

Increasing capacity is directly related to hiring and training more staff. That doesn't happen overnight with specialized processes.

Anyone turning orders in a few days doesn't fully refinish, care about dust in the finish or laser etch graphics.

Quality takes time and it's pretty clear most of our customers understand that as many are patient and wait.

 

I had another company do a process on my 575
(I can't use the term refinish because they didn't do that) At the time this was the only company doing this type of work. I got my parts back in a week. Guess what? Within 2 years they got tacky again. I chose to use StickyRX this time around due to his method of truly stripping and refinishing the parts so this problem never comes back again.
Bottom line is if you are a perfectionist with your cars like I am then send them to StickyRX once and for all. If you are looking for a quick fix then send them elsewhere and be prepared to do it every few years .

 

I’m gonna say the supplier is probably a Ferrari family member. Lol.

 

Dave, does your process have a soft touch finish, or a hard touch finish when completed?

 

never seen this issue in Sweden so far in any ferrari at all, does it have to do with the climate?

 

We refinish with a hard touch coating which never fails.

We've done orders for customers in Sweden.

 

458?s

 

I think Australians are immune to sticky buttons from being in the southern hemisphere.

Their toilet water spins clockwise as it goes down. Changes everything.

 

I don't recall - I'd need to look through our records - we service customers world wide. One gentleman from Sweden actually came to our shop to drop off his parts (355) since he was visiting the states and IIRC, his wife had family close by in Toronto.

Outside of the USA, Australia is our largest customer base.

 

Hi Dave - Please consider research and how-to videos/procedures on removing the parts you refinish as you grow your company. I can repair pretty much anything but prying plastic bits off these cars scares the crap out of me. I know you are very busy and its not exactly the service your in but I'm sure it would be very valuable to your customer base. You could figure out how to approach it or monetize it to recoup costs but it would not be something that would have a lot of maintenance to support once a procedure is shown to work. Maybe just a forum where customers could post their experiences. Sounds like you don't need to go there from a business perspective but I know I would really want the help and sooner or later you would not have time to chat with each customer on the phone or email. Best.

 

It's something we want to do to simply help people, however, yes - it's very time consuming and we need access to the cars. I've been promising a 575 for a while and we are doing that car very soon. Right now our main focus is adding more staff. I try to monitor the forum when I'm doing paper work at my desk or when I get out of the booth waiting for parts to flash as I just did now.

We also have a pretty nice network of shops now and often refer customers to those guys for the R&R. I realize some want to DIY the R&R and we are cool with that. We provide fee support whenever we can. I take calls 365 days a year, anytime day or night as long as I'm not sleeping

 

I recently purchased an exceptional 99 355 F1 Berlinetta. Though already in superb condition I undertook a freshen-up process to get the car to “like new”, factory original condition. Those that know me know my passion for Ferrari preservation and concourse presentation. Luckily I didn’t have much to do. The two highest priorities were an engine out service (including a thorough detail of the entire engine and engine bay), and sending ALL sticky parts to Dave at StickyRX. Though a number of the parts were refinished years ago, I decided to have every part redone so the all matched perfectly with the benefit of Dave’s most recent refinishing technology. The parts look incredible. In the coming weeks I will post a thread that shows details of the finished results.