Ferrari Mailing List: Re: 328 Assessment - alternative view

[Paul Bennett (pbennett]

> The 328 is vastly superior to the 308 in many ways
> Unless you over heat a 328 it will run forever
> The trany is the same as the 308

Vastly?  Half-vast, how?.  Many ways superior? Displacement 
certainly?  More? Worker had more practice putting 308's together 
thus were more adept?  Better tools in the factory?

What puts me off on the 328 are several time bombs not found in the 308.
These are ABS, Lamda, and FuseBlock which must be acknowledged.

1) ABS  adds things to go wrongs with no  added performance, and 
wheels I don't care for.   Not a biggie but  a piece of the puzzle.
2) Lamda injection adds a whole box of components which do go wrong 
while adding only an appeasement to the environmental gods, not 
improving performance.  Bigger piece.
3) The relay/fuseblock is a very real timebomb.  While easily fixed 
for life in the 308, it's forever a money/time pit in the 328 and 
with each hiccup of the 328, it must be considered a 'component of 
interest' until cleared.   Perhaps the future will bring a 
'fix-forever' $2k replacment but until then, portions of it will fail 
and diagnostics fix are a nightmare.

I really love the appearance of body colored 328 bumpers plus the 
driving light treatment beats the early 308s.  Bumper protrusion 
length is operator adjustable so not a plus.   I feel the black rack 
spoiler is in like a Scuderia fender shield, personal, ...simply 
added for a difference but it's a negative distraction to the lines 
of the car.  Always wondered about how the spoiler affects 
performance even to keeping rain/dust off the rear window.

Not the question, I know, but my personal recommendation, best of all 
world's choice, would be the simple and lowly 1983 QV which has the 
best of all worlds, or Euro 1984-5 which is virtually the same with 
no lamda crap.  But a 1983 has no sex-appeal...but buying a car like 
chosing a life-mate, isn't a logic choice and sometimes a particular 
color will overcome one's knowledge of known negatives.  But one 
thing for certain, having any 328 beats not having one.