Ferrari of Washington

Call Jonathan

 

Hi,

In response to your question about Ferrari of Washington DC, I was and still am thinking about purchasing a Ferrari. My budget is about $150,000. I made a called to Ferrari of Washington DC and left a voice mail with the manager. He never called me back. I called them after four days and asked then to connect me with a sells person (besides the manager). I made the appointment and went there to see, test drive, and learn about Ferrari 458, California T, and an F430. However, it appears that test driving a Ferrari is not an easy task. Ferrari of Washington DC did not want me to test drive the car until they had a commitment from me!!!! How can anyone make a commitment without test driving the car first?? It's like proposing to someone without seeing or knowing if you have a connection with her/him. I am not sure if most Ferrari dealerships are like Ferrari of Washington DC, but I found it to be very odd and strange. Considering that I am an extremely busy person, I don't have the time to go there to kiss ass first and then get invited to test drive a car. I was very turned off by their action. They gave me the feeling that my time was not important and I can come there at anytime they wished me to come.

Maybe someone else has had better experience with them, but I don't recommend using them. If they treated me that way before a sale, imagine how they would treat you after they have completed a sale and got their money.

 

I've never had that experience I think they just need to know you're serious as they get a lot of people through the doors just admiring
and tire kicking.

 

How do you tell a person that you are serious, besides saying that you are interested in learning and potentially purchasing a Ferrari.

 

I don't know but I can tell you I've never had any experience like that.

 

I do!!!

 

I think this is a big problem for many dealerships. No one knows who is serious or not and unfortunately people like to assume. Many dealers have brushed me off and they in turn haven't received my business. Jonathan is a nice guy and if you haven't, maybe you should try him. I could definitely see FOW brushing off peole, as they have a terrible reputation. I live local and bought most of my ferrari's out of state. New and used. Many locals buy from Algar ferrari and Ferrari of Central NJ.

 

I've never actually asked for a test drive before buying a Ferrari, five now. Though they did off and I did accept test drives of all the California models as they came out, told them I wasn't buying. Did eventually though.

FoW really isn't like that. They do have to weed out people they think may not buy from them though. Most of the ferrari's they have in inventory are consignment, someone else's car. If you're still trying to decide which model, stands to reason you're only going to start shopping for the right one once you've decided which model. Which means you test drive their customer's car and then go shop nationwide for the right one. I'm guessing that's what happened. If you'd told them you were looking at a couple of specific cars at other dealerships as well as one at FoW, might have gone differently. Just guessing.

First four though, I believed and IMO was correct that if I wanted to own a Ferrari, I would learn to drive it correctly and appreciate it's characteristics. IOW, if I didn't like it, it would be me not the car.

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I don't know how or where they get this terrible reputation. People were mad at them when AA sold the dealership and it actually became more about business than racing. But I've dealt with most of their folk since and whether I disliked their quotes on service at times, I've never met anyone there that wasn't nice or accommodating. I think they're a great dealership. I don't always buy there or service there, but they've never given me reason to dislike them.

 

I haven't dealt with them really other than to have them hold the 360 i bought in escrow while the seller and i finalized the transaction (he was a customer of theirs). They were fine for that and easy to deal with. However, I have heard stories from a couple of reliable people in relation to services that make me raise an eyebrow. Given I know about 6 people with these cars, the percentages aren't great (but admittedly the sample size is too small, etc.).

 

Oh yeah, I've heard some nightmares as well. Wkumari's is probably the worst I've heard. Nothing like paying a dealership five figures to guess what's wrong with your car, and be wrong. Their service dept is definitely inconsistent. Several years ago when Ashe sold, they turned over expensive expertise for youngsters. That didn't help. Rob Panico stuck around for a while and did the major on my 612 which went swimmingly for a number of reasons. The Service Dept Mgr at the time, Glenn, was cool and allowed me to bring my own parts, charged actual labor, etc. That's the way it should be if the want secondary buyers like me to bring our service business. And Rob, wherever he is now, is an incredible mechanic. But not long after was the 599 leaky shock incident, different service manager and they hit me with the full stealership experience which I walked away from. 400% difference between what it should have cost and what they tried to charge me. That shouldn't happen. They're also on their forth or fifth Service Mgr now since I've been around, 2010. Inconsistency abounds. If these cars didn't have so much **** that could go wrong, that wouldn't be so bad. But they do.

 

There are a lot of REALLY great Ferrari techs within a reasonable radius of Sterling Virginia. Y'all are lucky to have such solid choices in MD, VA, and DC -- expensive mood lighting and polished reception desks are not what lead to proper diagnosis, level-headed repairs, and marque-appropriate preventative maintenance.

Having years of experience (multiple models, track, road, concours, etc) is what makes a professional IMHO. I'd rather have a Ferrari engine serviced on a wooden pallet supported by cinder blocks by a pro with 30 years of expertise, than a 'factory trained' newbie with a laser-guided Bluetooth iPad that thinks he/she can invent a better mousetrap after reading Fchat or Google for a while.

It only takes a little effort to look around Fchat or ask/PM/converse with the folks here to figure out which shop is well-suited for a particular owner.

 

Find the right mechanic for your ride, and know the number for Ricambi.

 

I assume Maserati of Washington and FOW are one and the same.

I had a very bad experience with them earlier this year trying to buy a 17 GT.

I guess it worked out in the end because I'm now a 430 owner but I will never go there again.

No thanks.

Steve

 

None of there salesman in sterling push Maserati and that's why they don't sell many. None of them really try since they make more off ferrari sales. There arlington store sells more than there sterling store becuase the arlington store has dedicated Maserati salesman and are pushing the product. You know they must not sell many in sterling since Safford just opened a maserati store in tysons, basically in between fow's store in sterling and arlington. 3 maserati stores within 30 miles and the one in the middle is owned by a different company, where's the logic in that if your fow.

 

Just want to chime in here and give a few good words about James in the service department. I had my new to me 575 PPI-ed at FOW, and James was extremely helpful and accommodating. Considering the PPI was $375, he/they went above and beyond, in my opinion - recommended carriage, advised on service needs knowing the car would be serviced down here, took the time to get a valuation from their sales department...all good!

 

This post is PTSD for me. Against my knowledge about their reputation, and my gut feeling, I got to experience dealing with FOW a little over a year ago. Probably the worst example of poor customer service that I have had to endure. The mistakes and cover up stories were so bad that they were insulting of ones intelligence. After all the lies, it took quite some time to hear an admission of error and get an apology, which was less than sincere. Sometimes there are bad experiences, but this was off the charts. Will never support anyone or any company that treats their customers like this.

 

So i was looking at the 330gt > 350gto earlier and the thread and saw some of the later posts regarding test drives...

A lot of test drives are given to previous customers/current owners to entice them into something new, not to help close some stranger you have no history with.

fwiw, there's a lot of people with and without money who want a test drive for a joy ride and it's constant. Sometimes can be a dangerous thing - I had a guy pass through the filters, so to speak, and he hit 130 on the test drive and there was nothing I could do to stop it but bark for him to slow down. He could've killed me. We finished the test drive and he was all pumped up on adrenaline, but calmed himself for two seconds just to say 'yeah, i'm going to pass' and left. Lived a few other examples, but that was the most egregious.

There's a saying at this level - 'buyers aren't drivers,' which I think is true 90% of the time.

 

Agreed. Bought my 458 from FoCNJ sight unseen and never drove it until signing the papers, nor did I even ask to do so.


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I’ve had great experiences at FOW, Jon, James, Franklin and Chris have been accommodating and helpful in purchase, ownership and service. This has been a ongoing theme since ownership changed.

 

I agree, they are always welcoming and friendly. I have never experienced anything else.

 

I have had more good experiences there than bad ones. Although the last bad one has me looking for another service company.

They turned a simple Virginia State Inspection into a nightmare with the State. FoW's inspector flagged the replacement CATs (Fabspeed) that actually passed the Emissions test as not having a DOT stamp on them. For the record.....FoW had passed the car the previous six years with those CATs in place. That kicked off a rejection that meant I could not renew the plates on the car......or drive it.

The only solution presented by FoW was to purchase new CATs from Ferrari at $9K a piece. I thought this was really unreasonable and FoW referred me to the State of Virginia. The State backed up the rejection even though it would pass a tailpipe/dyno test. They referred me to the State Statute that said only DOT registered replacements could be installed.

In the end I had to choose between storing the car until it reached the magic age of 25 years or move the car to another State. I am fortunate because we have property in Florida and that State is very friendly to Ferraris.

I believe James, who I like, could have stopped this train wreck but the inspector was new and he had already reported the rejection to the State before he made James aware of it.

 

So, I have a repair shop in VA that does State Inspections/Emissions. The shop has no control over the inspector and what he can/can't do. Main reason is the if the inspector passes something that should fail and the state finds out, the inspector could lose their license which in turn could cost them their job/livelihood. Some new inspectors or just guys that follow the book extremely closely will find things to fail and unfortunately the shop gets the bad review. My only bad reviews at my repair shop are people who failed Inspections. Our service manager tries to explain it that we can't control what the inspector passes/fails and tries to help the situation like telling them they can go anywhere to fix the issue or call the state police directly but no one likes hearing their car fails and has to spend money to repair it, especially when it passed the year prior. All inspectors are different, no real consistency in the field. Unfortunately happens all the time....

 

I used to have very good luck with FOW and I still do with the service department they are excellent in my mind... A few years ago the salesman there AMIR was excellent he was very pleasant and heck offered me 3 specials at different times ... He left and is now GM of another car dealer ...they are still nice but different