Flaming Ferrari 458's and the Audacity of Auto Journalists - Road Testament

i like to comment on the ford tire inflation, that's maintenance error the dealer that sells the car has to check it before its handed over to the buyer that includes checking the tire pressure, fluid levels etc. at least that's how VW/Audi do it in Holland. So the driver isn't to blame when you buy a car you expect you don't have to check the tire pressure for at least a month

So exotics are catching fire, nice. Hope they aren't when I finally purchase one. 
Anyway, I had issues downloading this on iTunes, had to come to the sight.
Did you guys say something that pissed off Apple?

Four catastophic failures. In equivalent sales that's like 100 Corvette's going up in flames - not a statistically significant...?!

Either the drivers are moneyed douchebags or Ferrari has become a douche by being slack in their checking of buyers and not getting them properly acquainted along with advanced training course offered with these sort of cars.

So is the non flameable parts in the engine compartment getting so hot they are burning?  Also for as much as those cars cost they should be able to take what ever gear changing you can do and if it breaks then it should be under warranty(they fix all charges).  Ferrari has a few years of designing transmissions they should have one that can take as many gear changes as possiable,  without having to be on the track with different gears.

Maybe its just Driver Error, like a rich Douche-bag is driving 140mph, and lites a cig, and he sets it down instead of puts it out, cause he has to answer his cellphone, thus forgetting about his cig, and the car catches fire, or maybe their's just a fuel line problem? Or 458 haters?

static electricity + fuel. . . .  it could happen . . . . stop ur driving in those fine wool threads

I seem to recall another well know Italian super car company that had issues with bursting into flames....I think Italian cars just like catching fire.

you should show more pics in the video...... the information is great but watching these guys for 10 minutes is to much...

I agree with below comments. The only thing in my imagination that you can do to make a car catch fire as driver error is pour fuel on all over the place when you're filling up.. and even then, the evaporative qualities of the fuel will make it dissipate quickly enough that unless you light a match and throw it at it in a matter of minutes if you're parked and seconds if you're driving it, It's simply not possible. There's one other possibility.. as remote as it may be.. that the catalytic converters are getting so hot that any foliage on the road would ignite if they touched them. The only exotic I've driven that really can't be beaten on is an Esprit and that's only because it has a french transmission. The clutches in a lot of cars are problematic with launch control initiated (Enzo, 430 etc..) but that's only a clutch. How would one catch fire to the car otherwise?

WHAT?! How can a car spontaneously catching fire not be a design flaw? 4 cars out of 1000 is a huge defective rate for problem like this and I would wager that, in fact, it is a design flaw causing this problem. Driver error implies a mistake made by the driver, and there is nothing a driver does from inside the car that will cause it to catch fire. My guess is that Ferrari has packaged components too tightly together in the chassis in an attempt to improve the cars handling, and something flammable is probably sitting way too close to something that gets really hot. Oh, and another thing, to imply that all exotics are fragile machines that cannot be driven hard is ridiculous. Ferrari knows that buyers are going to drive those cars hard, thats why you buy the car. To say that a car catching fire is driver error because they are driving their sports car too fast is just stupid. If I was going to drive slow, I would have bought a minivan. Your only good point was that this is in fact a new model of car and the fact that it may take some time to "debug" it is perfectly resonable, especially since a small manufacturer like Ferrari has reletively few test vehicles on which to notice problems.

are you guys saying that you cant drive a ferrari quickly or it will catch fire? is that a joke?

Sorry, I will no longer be a client on Thursdays. Good try

If you paid 0K for a car, it better NOT catch fire unless its fire bombed. 4 of 1000 cars catch fire it is NOT a good track record for reliability.

Mercedes Class A used to roll when doing a "scandinavian flick"

You guys also forgot the ford f150s and crown vics with the ignition system. They overheat and catch fire.. Still a good show by the way.