Well here's what I've done with my 2005 Q45
Bought at 94.5k miles for $14.5k in 2010 from shady Russian dealership.
Car was getting 9.5 MPG at time of purchase. I don't know what I was thinking when I saw it the first time.
Replaced air filter a week later. Pic of old one here:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/51/img0571qz.jpg/
Day after replacement, car breaks down and doesn't stay started for more than a second. Turns out that a piece of dirt got into the intake post-filter when I was replacing it.
Airbag replaced under warranty - didn't deploy.
Taillights replaced under warranty. When dealer told me there was a recall for the taillights, I acted like I knew what he was talking about because one taillight was letting a lot of water in. He looked at me funny and then said it was because the lights weren't bright enough or something
Oil changed multiple times - I think I like 10W-40 the most but I'm using 10W-30 synthetic now.
Fuel filter changed - like the air filter, this one was never changed during the lifetime of the car. Full post here:
post6135402.html#p6135402
Cabin air filter changed - also never changed, pretty dusty.
Metal seat bracket broke resulting in some serious seating problems when turning. Had to have it re-welded. Still not sure how the mechanic pulled that one off without setting the seat on fire
Now onto the problems that I am still unsure/uneasy about:
I waited 7.5k miles once to change my oil because I was running synthetic. I noticed that when I checked the oil level on the dipstick, it wasn't even on the bottom dot. I'm afraid I may have damaged the engine because since then, the car always starts idling at 1.5k after a cold start and the RPMs go down VERY VERY slowly till they reach 575. When I first had the car, It would start at 1.1k TOPS and would move to 575 relatively quickly. Could this have to do with different oil viscosity or did I damage something after all by not having enough oil?
The damn mirrors don't fold by themselves when locking the car. I was 100% sure that the F50 had this feature.
After filling up at Lukoil in NJ once, I started feeling noticeably worse performance and gas mileage. Might have just been a coincidence, but everything was normal until then. I changed the fuel filter and used Chevron Techron fuel system cleaner TWICE already. The gas mileage was at 17.6 before the Lukoil incident, ~15 after, and ~17.1 now. My driving habits have not changed and neither has my highway/city ratio. Any suggestions? I'm not so much concerned with the .5 MPG drop as I am with:
The performance. I read that this car has a 5.8 second 0-60. The fastest I have gotten was 6.5 slightly downhill. This was done after heating up the tires with a 3 second burnout. Not sure if this is normal or something is wrong after all.
Lastly, I have a sound coming from the engine after cold starts as though a belt is slipping. It's that annoying sound and it sounds like a squeel. It's a broken-up sound (squeek, squeek, squeek squeek, squeek) but at relatively fast intervals (I'd say 343 squeeks per minute at idle) and it increases with higher RPMs. After the engine warms up, the sound goes away completely. Any ideas?