No SDL. The car only smelled of fuel when we started it Friday evening, and we shut it down almost immediately.
The whole engine bay smells of fuel. It's overpowering. If it had smelled like that when we first started it to take it home, I would have shipped it.
My 355GTB had a hair line crack in the fuel filter from it being over tightened during its major. Smelled while driving and even stunk up the garage. Lucky nothing bad happened. Had it replaced and zero smell. Never saw any CEL’s though so you could have more than one issue. Codes will tell. Good luck!
If looking for fuel leak pressurize the system to stimulate a leak. Then start from top of motor and work your way down. Leaks can come from a long way. Take stuff out so you can see like engine fender covers etc...
Just get the codes read. One step at a time. If it is fuel and it is leaking out of the cat-header joint then it's internal. So not spraying fuel over a hot engine. Since these guys, Motion Products Inc. of Neenah, Wisconsin, service it in Oct 2019, give them a call Monday. Hard to tell from the pictures on BAT but does the car have test pipes or cats? Any indication of a misfire?
Julia. I know Motion Products very well. Too well in fact. Some background: Jim Wellner is the General Manager there. The engine out work was most likely done by Ray. At least I hope he did it. Ray has a concourse winning yellow 355 of his own and is quite versed in the cars.
Unless you can pull the codes from the OBD2, these are just wild guesses and may not help you at all. You will want to find a better mechanic that knows these 355s well. First sign of familiarity: being able to read OBD2 codes off a 96+ model.
First of all, Julia, congratulations for your new car. I think the 355 is the last of the true berlinettas. Lovely car. I can only repeat the advice given above. Get in touch with reputable independent who knows well ferraris and get them to collect the car. While it is great to want to DIY a few things, you probably want to have a full and complete assessment of the car by professionals. Needless to say, anything that can result in fuel or oil being sprayed onto hot parts of the car should be taken very seriously. For my last major on my car I had all coolant and fuel hoses replaced. Only to have the main return oil line develop a pin leak onto my exhaust manifolds. So oil lines got changed too. The 355 are now 25 year old, it’s a safe bet that everything should be replaced if original.
Agree with all this a)congrats on the car,b) get a reputable garage who have done 355s to look at it. Whilst mechanic is mechanics there are quirks to these cars so don’t just take it anywhere. c) fuel lines have a life expiry as they are rubber; if you don’t have a receipt for them get them all changed out. You don’t need to pay stupid Ferrari prices as any competent hose company can make you copies for a fraction of the price. As an aside I’d be very surprised if the fuel was coming out of the cats, the car would be running seriously rough for that to occur, and there would be an exhaust leak as well! More likely it’s running down from somewhere; most obviously place to start as suggested is at the top; I’d be starting by checking a) the fuel block connections at the front of the engine are all snug and connections onto the fuel rails. Good luck and keep us posted. (I just sorted a big fuel leak on one of my Ferraris and it was not fun; eventually gave up and took it to my local main dealer who do all my servicing.)
Bought from “Bring A Trailer?” Isn’t that ironic. I guess you missed taking the trailer part. I wouldn’t buy nail clippers from these online auctions, let alone a Ferrari.
Arrogant??? Absolutely not! Ask the owner if she would make the same or a similar purchase again! Deep down, you probably agree too...
S-T48 has been given a one day site ban: Trolling a member looking for assistance with unhelpful posts. Everyone should do their best to avoid this type of response which is not needed in the 348/355 section there is a report button so please use that to notify mods rather than any verbal fisticuffs. Thanks. Robb
Julia my OBD wiujf not work when I bought my car as well. Doing some sleuthing it turned out one of the pins on the nine pin connector from the engine bay to the behind the passenger seat was bent over from when the major had been done. You can search my posts for that thread. In the meantime open that cover behind the passenger seat and you’ll see that nine pin plug. Unplug it and visually inspect the pins.
https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/obd-issue-on-state-inspection-nj.403585/ There is the thread I started when my OBD would not work and how I figured out why. Hope it helps
Yes, there is power to the OBD2 port. The scanners get to a certain point and then they fail to communicate. The locks, clock, and interior lamps work. As to T48's question, yes, I would buy it again. But this time, I'd run injector cleaner with each tank of gas on the way home.