At Home Mechanic

Blind love is the maybe the single greatest indicator of possible danger ahead in a hobby car relationship. If an automobile enthusiast is imprinted at an early age upon a particular make or model of automobile it will be nearly impossible for him or her to ever be objective about that object of their affection. A good example of this deadly trap is my friend E. He fell in love with Magnum PI’s Ferrari back in his elementary school years and he has been under the spell of the Prancing Horse ever since. Time passes; he is married with a young family, and has a small house with a large mortgage. Life was good for E, but he felt that there is something lacking, like a space that was not filled. That space turned out to be in his garage and he filled it with a good deal on a slightly used1995 Ferrari 348 Targa in Italian Red (what other color could a Ferrari be?). E was happy.

Well, E was happy until his cream puff turned into an inedible bulk. It turns out that the forty thousand miles on his used Ferrari were generated at a rental car in a holiday destination. “Rode hard and put up wet” does not begin to describe the usage this car received as an upscale rental hack. And the rental company did not waste a lot of money on using a Ferrari approved repair facility to keep the car running. As things went wrong on the car for E he discovered a series of low cost, quick fixes to keep the shiny car on the road for ham-fisted renters. E’s good deal has turned into a nearly continuous horror story of expensive fixes that are draining his pocket and his resolve. Hidden body damage, electrical faults and transaxle troubles combined with staggering part prices (spark plug wires at $150 for each of eight wires?) have added nearly 50% to his original purchase price. Of the four years he has owned the car, it has been able to navigate the street under its own power for less than half that time.

A more rational person would have drawn a line in the sand and terminated the costs much earlier in the process. Just get the car running reliably enough to sell it off as a “work in progress” to someone else to finish sort out this mess. But E is in love and determined to see this relationship to the very end.

I hope that E gets his Ferrari running again and that he can find happiness with that car for all times into the future. But I suspect that the love that E lavishes upon his Ferrari will be returned with ever increasing bills and very little driving time.