The Diablo's V12 has two $5000 engine computers, which occasionally fail. Lamborghini is sold out of replacements.On paper, a used super-exotic makes sense. You get the mind-blowing performance and heartbreaking looks, but at a lower price than a new hypercar, and with no yearlong stay on a dealer's waiting list. But—surprise!—the buy-in is only half the damage. Parts are far from cheap and often hard to come by. Many jobs require purpose-built tools. And for countless reasons, supercars are rarely designed for ease of maintenance—the same task that takes an afternoon on your mother's Toyota could consume five days on a McLaren. We polled owners and mechanics to find out what makes working on these cars aggravating, expensive, and just plain weird.McLaren estimates annual running costs to be $30,000. Oil changes are $8000. Owners can have their cars serviced at the factory in Woking, which employs two full-time F1 techs. (Ralph Lauren does this with his three F1s. The money from that blazer you bought goes to good use.)"
The car is appreciating so fast, the repair bills will never catch up to the price." —The bright side, according to Lauren's mechanic, Mark Reinwald.Resale value on the 650-hp Enzo works as it does with all Ferraris—service records are crucial. "Every time something was done to the car, you better have the piece of paper that goes with it," says Michigan's Ken Lingenfelter, the owner of our photo car. If you don't, get ready to knock far more than the service cost off your asking price.Oil or shop fluids can irreversibly damage a $6000 carbon-ceramic rotor, so a set of factory covers protects them during service.Each dealer must buy a $10,000 tool package and this scissor lift for Enzo work. (It won't hold the new LaFerrari, either.)Topping off after an oil change takes an hour:*Warm up the Enzo's V12 with the $60,000 engine lid open, and the carbon-fiber body will expand enough that the lid won't close until the car cools.Like other Porsches, Weissach's 205-mph, V10 super-Boxster runs 15,000-mile oil-change intervals.
And by supercar standards, a valve-adjustment service (30,000 miles, engine out, four days) hits once every blue moon. Everything else is, predictably, nuts.Service your Carrera GT, or just buy a used Cayman?Replacing the trick ceramic clutch: $25,000 including labor. A full brake job—$30,000—is a steal by comparison.When the CGT was new, dealers had to buy a special $10,000 table and an $8000 jig to hold the car's engine during service.*The battery hides behind a panel in the right rear wheel well and only fits through the hole one way. All the more reason to use the sold-with-every-car trickle charger.It's not a supercar, but the Rambo Lambo used enough parts from the superbin. Roughly 300 were made from 1986 to 1993, using the V12 from the Countach.Pirelli recently resumed production of LM002-specific Scorpion tires, although without the early sidewall ridge for flotation in loose sand. A set of five is discounted to $15,000.Custom Twin-Turbo Systems that produce up to 1750 horsepower for Lamborghini Gallardo.
800WHP to 1750WHP Twin Turbo systems for 2004 to 2014 Lamborghini Gallardos now available. Stage 1 Twin Turbo 800 WHP on pump gas (93 octane) *LP 560/570 Tuning with stock Bosch ECU's 2009-2013 LP560-4 models at $32,000 installed Stage 1 Twin Turbo System with Stock Engine 700 WHP on pump gas (93 octane) 800 WHP on pump gas (93 octane) *LP 560/570 900 WHP on race fuel (VP-C16 117 octane) 04-08 1000 WHP on race fuel (VP-C16 117 octane) 09-13 2004-2008 Gallardo models at $35,000* installed 2009-2013 LP560-4 models at $39,000 installed Stage 2 Twin Turbo System with Modified Engine 850 WHP on pump gas (93 octane) 1150 WHP on race fuel (VP-C16 117 octane) 2004-2008 Gallardo models at $65,000* installed 2009-2013 LP560-4 models at $69,000 installed Stage 3 Twin Turbo System with Modified Engine 1000 WHP on pump gas (93 octane) 1250 WHP on race fuel (VP-C16 117 octane) 2004-2008 Gallardo models at $89,000 installed 2009-2013 LP560-4 models at $94,000 installed Race Version Twin Turbo System with Highly Modified Engine 1050 WHP on pump gas (93 octane) 1500 WHP on race fuel (VP-C16 117 octane) All Gallardo models starting at $109,000 installed Stage 2 Race Version
Turbo System with Highly Modified Engine 1750 WHP on race fuel (VP-C16 117 octane) *Call for pricing X Version Turbo System with Highly Modified Engine2000+ WHP on race fuel (Race Gas)*Sequential Transmission *Call for pricing Beau's Twin Turbo 2007 Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder 850 WHP using Pump Gas 1150 WHP using Race Gas Underground Racing Custom Twin Turbo System Custom twin billet 62mm Precision Turbochargers TiAL billet wastegates and billet blow off valves Custom fabricated stainless steel exhaust using aircraft quality metal Ultra lightweight stainless steel mufflers Custom fabricated stainless steel air induction using aircraft quality metal Custom Air/Water intercooler system with high flow water pump Custom ice water reservoir High flow intercooler water heat exchanger Show quality polishing on turbo compressor, intercooler and charge piping. Custom heat shielding and high quality heat wrap Exhaust Finish Options:high temp heat coating or polished mirror finish
High quality silicone hose High pressure T-bolt clamps for intake pressure tubes High quality v-band clamps for exhaust connections Underground Racing Custom Billet Short Block Full blue print and balanced race short block Carrillo billet steel connecting rods CP custom reverse dish aluminum race pistons CP .180+ wall wrist pins CP oil rail support Custom steel cylinder sleeves Total seal TNT file fit rings Two custom billet fuel pump hangers with high flow fuel pumps Custom aluminum fuel rails All Aeroquip stainless steel fuel line and aluminum fittings Aeromotive adjustable fuel pressure regulator AEM Engine Management System GReddy Electronic boost controller Professional dyno and streetability tuningDoes this look like a real Lamborghini to you? The "Mercy 4" built by CARKITINC uses a Pontiac Firebird as its base. It's up to the buyer to install the $3,995 kit which, according to CARKITINC, can take anywhere from 4-6 weeks to install.
If the idea of owning an extremely fast and hugely expensive Lamborghini sports car for less than $4-grand sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. To drive the point home, Lamborghini Automobili is taking legal action against CARKITINC, a kit-car company based in Albertville, Alabama. For approximately one year now, the small outfit has been making the dream of Lamborghini ownership slightly more accessible. “It’s really just for fun,” says Jackie Johnson, owner of CARKITINC. Johnson first got the idea to build his Lamborghini kits after seeing a white Murcielago LP 640, owned by professional snowboarder and skateboarder Shuan White, on television. When he researched the car online, Johnson couldn’t believe the exotic car’s stratospheric sticker price. “No car can possibly be worth half a million dollars,” he said. He soon created a fiberglass mold of the Murcielago and began selling the Lambo-look-alike kits online, throughout the U.S. Starting with a used Pontiac Firebird, CARKITINC’s Lamborghini “Mercy 4” body-kit fits directly over the American muscle car, visually transforming it into a jaw-dropping exotic car – at least from the outside.
CARKITINC has been building its Lamborghini replicas for about one year. Lamborghini contends the kits are blatant rip-offs and is now taking the Alabama-based company to court to halt production. All the mechanical parts and interior trim can be left standard. You’ll need to chop the top of the Pontiac to make the kit fit, and the entire process takes about 4-6 weeks to finish. It wasn’t long before the kits got the attention of Lamborghini, however. “Evidently they must think our cars look pretty good,” said Johnson, in regards to what he considers the Italian company’s over-reaction to his kits. “They’re taking it really seriously.” Johnson equates the legal tussle to being “like something from the Twilight Zone.” Before Lamborghini filed legal proceedings against CARKITINC in the U.S. District Court system, the company had reached out to Johnson with one fixed and firm request: Chop up those Lamborghini design molds. “They told me they wanted a videotape of me, or someone else, using a chainsaw on the molds,” Johnson explained.