Adventioneering

There is a lot of (conflicting) information out there about the Maserati clutch and transmission situation. It doesn’t help that the early versions of the transmissions had a lot of problems, and that exotic owners tend not (I’ve learned) to drive their cars more than 5 or 6k per year on average.

Consequently there isn’t a lot of feedback on what is going on with the newer transmissions vs. the older ones (which are higher miles and were problematic to begin with).

Here’s the basic skinny. Originally the Maserati’s were stick (GT), and then in association with Ferrari, at some point they started equipping cars with the Cambiocorsa (CC) gearbox.

Ferrari typically markets the identical gearbox on their own cars as the “F1 Superfast”, so you will often hear the CC referred to as a F1. As well, the CC typically provides the steering mounted paddle shifters typical of a Formula-1 car, although there are rare examples of cars that were ordered with the side-to-side gearstick control instead of the paddle shifters.

I believe, but don’t quote me, that the F355 was the first production car to feature a CC/F1.

On a side note, Cambiocorsa means “race change” in Italian, and yes, this is what people are talking about when they say a “flappy paddle gearbox”.

It is widely held that the CC/F1 transmission is a sequential manual transmission. I believed this for a long time. With a sequential manual, only a gear above or below the current gear can be selected. This means that there are really only two controls on the gearbox, up, or down, so you only need a two-channel actuator to run the box.

I am skeptical, honestly, because the pictures in the service manual show a gearbox that has a complex arrangement of hydraulic actuators (more than 2). I don’t understand why a sequential would need more than 2 (3 at the most), and suspect we may really be dealing with an H pattern box run by hydraulics. However, I am not transmission expert, and have never actually seen my own transmission.

In a traditional gearbox, you can pick any gear from any other gear, via a H pattern, unless you are driving a heavy truck or some Unimogs, in which case you need a flowchart to understand when and how you can shift into what.

The CC/F1 has a dry clutch which is basically identical to a regular car; except rather than a clutch pedal, an actuator (robot) runs the clutch rather than you. Consequently the computer can very precisely synchronize the clutch with the gear-change, providing very high speed gear changes (on the order of 50 to 150ms depending on what Ferrari or Maserati you have).

The transmission (and clutchbox) on the QP and GT are installed aft with the differential directly bolted to the transmission, F1-car style. The result is that the halfshafts to the drivewheels bolt directly into the transmission housing, which as a unit with the clutchbox, receives power from the engine via a torque tube. The rear mounting location provides a beneficial weight balance to the car.

On a tangent, the next evolution of this is the DSG-style. It offers two clutches, so the second clutch can pre-engage before the second one disengages, shortening shift times by an order of magnitude over a single clutch gearbox.

A lot of people attribute this to Audi, who gets some credit I think for putting it in the first production cars, but actually it was an innovation of BorgWarner. Audi licensed it off them, as did many other companies.

Ferrari, however, went on to develop their own, which débuts on the California. Maserati meanwhile is picking up the gearbox for the GT S due out later this year.

The CC was never a particularly reliable transmission, and nor was it smooth. Its primary problem is that at low speeds it can’t anticipate if you want to pull off, as from a red light, or just move slightly, as if in heavy traffic. The software basically always assumes that you are trying to pull off, and consequently will get fully into gear at it’s earliest opportunity. If you happen to be letting off the gas (which is fly by wire, fully computer controlled), you will lurch the car like a 14 year old learning to drive stick in dad’s BMW.

The first couple of versions of the transmission and software were particularly bad; the latest generation (the SoFast3, which is equipped in my 07 Quattroporte) is better but still bad. Drives who were buying F355s and F430s were expecting something jerky and aggressive, but this never sat well at all with the rich people that flocked to the QP as an alternative to a large BMW or Mercedes.

These same people were very upset when the car could not be managed easily in traffic (an acquired skill, trust me), and after enough latte spills, Maserati quickly negotiated with ZF to bring in the automatic from the BMW 7 series. With some redesigns (the automatic had to be bolted to the engine, unlike the rear gearbox arrangement previously used), these cars began arriving state-side.

For 2008, Maserati is no longer shipping CC gearboxes into the US (although still available on the Ferraris), which is why I own a 2007. This is changing (again) with the DSG in the GT S, but for the other cars, Maserati will only be providing the ZF stateside for the available future. In the rest of the world, you can still have the QP or GT with a CC.

At a basic level, when you drive the car slowly, the SoFast software will attempt to drag the clutch. The clutch is also (arguably) under-sized for the power of the car. Facing facts, you probably don’t own one of these if you aren’t occasionally drop clutching it full throttle, either.

In reverse, it turns out that the clutch will never fully engage, it will only drag. This defeats the problem you have in traffic (where the car too enthusiastically fully engages the gear). Now that I think about it, perhaps the answer in stop and go traffic is to drive backwards.

Then there’s the fact that if you turn off the stability control, the car assumes you are trying to show off, and if you floor it from a stop will rev the car to redline and drop the clutch, letting the wheels spin as long as you dare. For the record, I have done this precisely 3 times.

Consequently, according to my F/M dealer they tend to see clutch replacements done at around 20 to 30k. Lots of people, however, were doing these as soon as 5k, and oh, are there horror stories.

The part cost on the clutch is about a thousand dollars. Add a couple or few hundred more for the various bearings, and then your friendly F/M’s $139/hr labor rate, and this turns into a $4k job every 20k miles or so. Yeah. So, people are getting it done often at indy shops for about $2500. Not hearing a lot of DIY, either.

Replacing the clutch itself requires dropping the exhaust, gearbox, clutchbox, and torque tube. In and of itself this is actually not a bad job, if time consuming, however to bleed the clutch, perform the clutch kiss point adjustments and calibrations, or run through the SoFast tests, you need the SD3 (dealer, unattainable) or aftermarket ST05 (about $15,000).

If you can beg, borrow, rent, or steal a computer, this job is easy. If you are willing to do the job and then tow the car to somebody with a computer, it’s also easy (and still cheaper).

The other thing that goes on with the CCs relates to the F1 pump. The gearbox runs on hydraulics, which is the whining noise you can hear when you open the door on your QP, GT, F430, whatever. This is also why you don’t want to leave the keys in the ignition, because the pump will run occasionally and drain down your battery.

There were some software issues and (debatably) hardware issues that caused the pumps to burn out and fail prematurely, a common problem on pre SoFast3 boxes.

There is this philosophy among many owners that “It’s a Maserati” or “It’s a Ferrari”, so, “What do you expect”. I don’t know. I expect it to work at least as well as an Land Rover, my previous benchmark for “maintenance intensive”.

At the end of the day a car is a car even if it’s a Kia. It’s just a mechanical thing that was engineered to hopefully meet some objectives. It is true that the CC cars are designed this way. Arguably the clutches should be designed to slip less and should be larger for the loads. I am sure they are all compromises in some spreadsheet somewhere. When working properly, the CC puts a smile on my face like no other gearbox has.

So, based on talking to other people and collecting datapoints, here are some things I can tell you.

1 ) The computer tracks the clutch usage and reports it as a percentage. In other words, anyone with a SD3/ST05 can report your clutch use as say “30% remaining”. This is notoriously inaccurate to the point that even if it says your clutch is “100%” used, you should not replace it. Either drive the car until the clutch actually slips, for real, or have the clutch physically measured for an accurate assessment.

Blindly replacing the clutch when the computer tells the dealer (who certainly would not argue) that you need a clutch will just cost you money.

2 ) You almost certainly do not need to replace, refinish, or otherwise mess with your flywheel until you have gone through at least a couple of clutches. F/M refuses to resurface in most cases, insisting on replacement. Resurfacing is cheaper, but there is not consensus about whether this is safe, but lots of people seem to be doing it. Properly check the flywheel to see if it is in spec and if it is, don’t waste your time or money.

3 ) You also probably do not need to replace your TO bearing. These things, honestly, last for a really long time whether you have a GT box or a CC box. The reason to replace them is they aren’t that expensive, the car already costs a fortune, and you either just suffered through (or paid money to someone else for) a lot of labor to get it all apart. An ounce of prevention, they say.

4 ) If you don’t have the latest software, and can get it, get it. This is the version that really fixed the behavior of the gearbox and started saving clutches and F1 pumps from premature failure. It’s totally worth even whatever the F/M dealer will gouge you to take 5 minutes to plug in a computer and download it.

5 ) The pumps are not going to burn out abnormally on SoFast3 setups. On prior gearboxes, here’s the story. You may hear about the relays burning out, causing a failure of the pump. This is entirely true, but the problem is not actually the relay failing, it’s just a symptom. The real cause was the software would keep the pump running all the time, which would eventually burn out the relay which was not rated for it.

Because of the misconception that the relay was the underlying problem, a lot of people on the Internet endorse changing the relays proactively. This is expensive and a waste of time. It’s also potentially dangerous because the relay itself is closely coupled to the gearbox setup and they aren’t as interchangeable as you might think. Solve the real problem instead by making sure you have the latest software.

If you just replace the relay, the pump will still end up running too much (or all the time), leading to premature failure of the pump itself. The pump is not cheap. Not cheap at all. I hear on some of the Ferraris it can run into 10 grand.

6 ) When you do end up needing a new pump, on some of the Ferraris you can replace the pump without actually dropping the gearbox, even though this is what the service procedure says (and so more often than not, what F/M will actually bill for). Did I mention the pumps are not cheap? There are some people on the west coast that rebuild them. I can’t say if they are as good as new or not.

7 ) Drive in sport mode, all the time. All the time. Faster shift, less slip. Don’t listen to people who say this just adjusts the kiss point, and not really the takeup, they are missing the point.

8 ) Never drive in automatic, especially in heavy traffic. When you do drive in heavy traffic, do what I do, stay in first as much as you can, even if you have to rev it up to seven grand. You paid a lot to hear that noise. The backfire when the zombie in the econobox ahead of you hits the brakes and you lift is wonderful. Enjoy it.

When it all finally does wear out… it will slip. You’ll know this because it’ll slip badly. The car might spin up to 4 or 5 grand before the gear engages, if it engages at all. Sometimes you can limp home, if you are lucky, other times you will have to get it towed. Typically you have enough warning to deal with the problem. This is straight-forward failure.

Or you will get what I have, which started at about 19,500, which is a short slippy sort of noise when I pull away from a stop, particularly on an incline, particularly if I give it a bit too much gas. Works properly after that.

Problems with the pilot bearing, a failure that can occur independently of clutch wear, typically causes this noise. In theory it could also be the TO bearing however actual TO bearing failures are rare and you’d also hear the noise a lot of other times, not just pulling off for the first time from a stop.

It could also be the kiss point is out of whack on the transmission (solved by a recalibration with a SD3/ST05) and it’s just slipping a bit too much in startup situation, or, the clutch is glazed or otherwise abnormally worn.

I imagine I’ll know soon enough.