If you drive anything from an early 308 to a brand new Scuderia with stock wheels, you likely have the wheel center cap 108947 on your car. The caps, while nice when they're new, are really pretty crappy plastic and often crack, craze, and fade. Sometimes, the damn things fall right out. Other times, they get stolen by tifosi-crazy kids. The quality control on the old caps has been absolutely horrible. I used to hand-polish each and every cap, prior to shipping. Sometimes the yellowing was a bit odd; sometimes they had deep scratches in them, etc. etc. The only good thing about 108947 is that they are pretty darn cheap (compared to a dealer) at only $99/box.
Well, a few weeks ago we were running low on the 108947 and I fired off a Purchase Order for replacements. The reply from Ferrari? "NLA. Superseded to 226245". I thought, "Oh great, Ferrari found an even CHEAPER manufacturer for these....". Nonetheless, we needed to replenish our shelves so I bought a very small quantity of them for evaluation. This morning, my friendly DHL dude brought the new caps. I opened the box with extremely low expectations.
I was wrong. Ferrari has absolutely made a significant leap forward in the quality of these caps. The yellow is much 'tamer' and has a deeper tint; the plastic edges are much smoother and more consistent. And most importantly, the crappy press-fit plastic tabs are gone -- replaced with a very stout integrated steel circlip (like the early F355 caps). In a word, I'm VERY impressed.
Mike and I shot some YouTube video of the installation process. Easy as pie!
No comments:
Post a Comment