In one of the most bizarre incidents, a Ferrari owner managed to brick a brand new Portofino fresh out of the dealership. Shared on Reddit, the picture shows a red Ferrari Portofino stuck awkwardly in a basement. Although there aren’t many details on the incident, the description along the post claims that the Ferrari owner brought the beautiful grand tourer to a customization shop to get new car seats installed straight out of the dealership. Midway through the installation process, the Ferrari disabled itself might have happened due to an anti-tamper security feature getting triggered. Usually, Ferrari dealerships are equipped with a special tool to disable such security functions while working on the car. However, this incident in all probability happened at a non-authorized customization shop.
On social news website Hacker News, a user by the name LeonM explained: “The car disabled itself during installation. The OP assumed due to an anti-temper device, but it could have been any failure mode. Most modern cars with airbags will have sensors in the seats to disable some of the airbags if no passenger is sitting there. So it is no surprise that any work on the seats puts this system in an error state. Especially on high-performance cars, it is not unusual that the car immobilizes itself when the safety systems are in an error state.” The only way to fix the car in such a situation is to contact Ferrari. The security function can only be reset remotely by the automaker once the owner goes through the authentication process. However, in this case, Ferrari was unable to do that as the brand spanking new Portofino was parked in the basement, which meant no internet connection. This turned the Ferrari into a costly paperweight! However, there is an easy solution to the situation. All one needs to do is tow the car outside the basement where it has connectivity and let Ferrari reset the feature. Simple!
[Via: Reddit]
