Wow - just wow. I am so sorry you went through that. What a horrible, sinking, gut wrenching feeling that must've been. You're right, of course...it could always be worse and as I said...these are true first world problems. But, that's not what goes through your mind at first. It's only in hindsight that you see it that way . Anyway - so glad all worked out for you .. as I'm certain it will for me .. and it could CERTAINLY have been much worse indeed. Thanks for sharing. For what it's worth, I would've done the same things - not jumped on the throttle and sped off. That only seems to aggravate a situation like that...most of the time anyway. You did all the right things it seems to me.
This was probably the longest single post that I have read in FChat. Wow. But it was a good read. Well written and ended happily. Thank you for sharing this.
Hang in there, Steve. Once you get a fresh battery in there, she'll be good as new. Maybe see if you can take the opportunity to get a Antigravity battery in there so you can get ahead of any unexpected drains on the car causing you grief.
Braille li-ion battery would surely be a good choice. Does anyone know are they sold in Europe? Haven't found any yet.
Update - Spoke to Mike at Ferrari of Atlanta - he said that the car had a bad battery, super low tire pressure, and low power steering fluid (along with a couple of other minor things). Wow - This is how they let a 2019 488 out of their showroom for delivery (Ferrari of Washington in VA). I am just absolutely furious. How could you not do a simple check/once over of the car when selling to a new client? Anyway - FOA got it all sorted and gave it their approval...now trying to get it back to me. Good news is...I didn't realize how AWESOME FOA's service dept. is. Nice that this is the closest one to me now.
I can't speak highly enough of the service at Ferrari of Atlanta, as a fellow SC resident that's where I send my car as well. If by 'Mike' you mean Michael Roth then you are in the best of hands, even if it's another Mike your car is in the right place to get it sorted out and to get it to you as soon as possible.
When I bought mine, 2019 488, with 245 miles on it it was sitting in showroom and I asked if I could start it, wouldn't start as battery was dead and they said had been on a charger. They did get it sorted out before I picked up a couple days later but that convinced me to buy the jump pack listed above. Hope they informed you about the change in the maintenance program and no longer free oil changes every year. But on the plus side I have put a little over 4k miles on it and car has been flawless and a blast to drive.
488 GTB is such an AWESOME car. It suffers from a few gremlins with regards to the electrics. It would piss of many being stranded. My wife immediately wanted me to sell her . But I got the charger and never had that fear again. It happens , pull the cover off, connect and start.
a FINAL update - well, hopefully. Ferrari of Washington had a chance to make this reasonably right. They lined up FOA's transport to get me the car tomorrow. That's pretty decent considering it was only yesterday that it showed up and couldn't get off the truck. But - they failed to service their customer again. Apparently, they felt it was too expensive for them to incur that cost. So, they said to give them 2 days or so and they'd find a cheaper option to get my car to me. UNREAL. So, in addition to screwing their customer once with poor service, they're going to try to save a couple hundred bucks and get the cheapest knucklehead they can find to transport my $250k car AND make me wait LONGER. I told them to (well, I can't repeat it really). I took over and dealt directly with FOA (I do own the car for crying out loud) and just arranged for transport at my expense to arrive tomorrow. I told Ferrari of Washington (who offered to reimburse me 1/2 of the cost!)...that they can send me a check for whatever they feel their reputation is worth and I'd give them a week to do that. Then I would react accordingly with communication here, google, FB, Yelp, Ferrari of NA, BBB, etc etc. One of my companies does Internet marketing and reputation management so...I let them know it would be done well. Anyway - hopefully the car will be here tomorrow PM. I am just amazed at the short sightedness of these idiots. The Ferrari community is fairly small. If I don't get the full reimbursement, I'll apologize in advance for posting another thread outlining this whole story in one post as a review for Ferrari Of Washington (VA).
I would have been happy to pick it up and drive it to you! I could use a day away, and I always enjoy bothering the guys at FoA. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
+1 on Michael Roth and FoA. They are terrific. Is Rashad bringing you the car? He is my shipper. I have him handle all my transports.
A little email or phone call to Corporate should fix this problem. If not... Social media, as much as I hate it, tends to catch their attention very quickly. You can always go on Facebook or Instagram's dealers page or Corporate Ferrari's page and post a picture of your car on the delivery truck with a little caption describing the "less than or non Ferrari experience". Something along the lines of "something that wouldn't have happened with Hyundai or Nissan" or "Something NIssan or Hyundai wouldn't allow to occur"... As somebody else said... This doesn't really represent Ferrari. This is likely some (...) person that works for Ferrari thinks he is "up there" and is probably responsible but doesn't want to assume responsibility for his poor actions. So if Ferrari or his higher ups find out, he will be straightened out fast. I hope your bad experience soon turn to man s-miles in your new family member. Congratulations. This will hopefully soon be forgotten.
Find the email of someone at corporate. Write a polite but firm email to them about what a crappy experience you had. Copy Ferrari of Wash so they know what you sent. nothing my cone of it but then again you never know. After that- put the incident behind you. It’s not worth the brain damage. Just enjoy the hell out of your car. If you start a vendetta- it will just remind you of this time when you should be creating new ownership memories. Congrats on the car and good luck.
As I was reading this, I was cringing at the moment you at the moment you started describing your discomfort. Almost like a literary masterpiece, feeling the uneasiness through the words as the description of the events occurred. You are certainly a better man, I would have freaked the hell out... But of course, it is a situation you have to go through to see how you would react. However and nevertheless, very virtuous of you. It is indeed a strange and uncertain world out there and anything can occur. You just hope that it doesn't occur to you... But you never know when they may call up your number. The worst part is that you don't even know what is your number, you didn't pick a number and you don't know what you're being called for. I wish everyone good calls... Safe driving and many miles of happiness or s-miles as I learned here with such a great group of people.
I agree... I don't get riled up with guys in American muscle cars and Japanese wannabe speedsters... It is only a recipe for disaster. When you get some of these insisting, persistent people, I just wave them off making them aware I am not racing them. If that doesn't work, I have found that sometimes, you accelerate and make then believe you're racing, they will step on it all the way and then you just cut it off. "9/10 times" they keep going and some even think they beat you. Whatever, I get them off my case and then I drive off calmly to wherever I want to go.