Ferrari Mailing List: My car ready for a new owner

[Robert Rehkopf (CaptRehkopf]

Hi Listers'

The short story is I needed a brake booster pump and FOA did an excellent
job. The facts: end result was that there was about 2 pints of brake fluid
in the 'booster', evidently there is a piston and evidently for some time it
had been leaking. I didn't know it was leaking until the brakes wouldn't
work. BUT let me tell you some symptoms that I believe I had but didn't know
what it was. My car has always gotten 22-25 mpg running between 80-90 mph. A
year or two ago my miles started to drop to about 20 mpg and my engine
compartment smelled like what I thought was anti-freeze. Well on the way
back from Atlanta last night I averages the 25 mpg and the smell is faint.
Evidently for the last few years the vacuum in the booster has been sucking
brake fluid into the engine, according to Wade the FOA tech. The leak was
just enough to cut down my mpg but not enough to interfere with the
performance of the engine. At least I thought it ran extremely well.
However, as with all repairs/'stuff' either real or mental the car 'seems'
to be running better than before. I know the mpg is better.

The only downside, beside the cost, was the duplication of work. Wade spent
several hours fixing the reservoir leak and repairing the damage done by
brake fluid corrosion to the master cylinder; that work was eventually
wasted because the booster 'assembly' comes with the booster, master
cylinder and reservoir. So there was time spent that was redone so to speak.
However, FOA was excellent throughout the entire process. Put me first in
line, three times, and worked with me on all the costs and charges. End
result is I am a happy customer, but of course poorer.

As of this morning my car has a clean bill of health except for an AC leak
somewhere and that is it. That is the full extent of all known problems. It
has fresh Amsoil, Ferrari gear box fluid, new booster pump assembly, almost
new tires, almost new brake pads, new brake fluid, only 328 in the world
with cross drilled rotors, etc. it is truly ready to sell to a new owner.
Actually I'm glad all this happened, because I wouldn't want to sell the car
and this happen to the new owner; which is basically why I went to FOA in
the beginning, a pre-purchase evaluation and fix.

Oh yeah, the MITTY was great.

Robert

1988.5 328 GTS

Red/Tan