GTC Roof Issues

[AR101]

Hi all.

I have a 2014 GTC and the roof had to be manually closed by Bentley Assist earlier this week. The roof cover caught on the trunk and subsequently got stuck and has dislodged the trunk at one side. The roof is unusable but no error messages are displayed, or, indeed have been at all (even when stuck!).

Anybody else facing similar issues as I have heard a whisper this isn't quite as rare as Bentley want us to think...?

[Shaw Tarse]

Byteme said:

What on earth is a "trunk"?

Maybe what an elephant has, or in this case a boot?

[meistro]

Yes, indeed, Byteme, the elephant has one as does any automobile. At least to us Colonials over here. So...the trunk is the boot.

[AR101]

Yes it is certainly strange, particularly as there has been no warning bleeps, messages at all! I am confident the roof would still attempt to open even now!

The boot/trunk is indeed separate but the tonneau cover now catches on this as it flaps up. This appears to have warped the boot as it now does now sit flush when closed.

Pretty unacceptable on a 6 month old car, convertible with complicated mechanism or not!

[AR101]

It still is a very expensive car....is it not?

[puss]

I thought the boot lid was made of a plastic material as used on the old Renault Espace so I doubt it can warp. Anyway, my roof wouldn't close properly while cruising down to south of france. Bentley Assist were great, rental cars for the next few weeks while the car sat at dealer in Cannes for repair to roof as well as noise from n/s/r wheel area. They changed the bearing but didn't work. Concluded it was split rim alloys having broken bolts following shoddy refurbs some time ago by previous owner. Wanted to charge £11k for 4 new wheels as wheels not covered by warranty. Told them I'd sort it cheaper here which I'm now doing with the help of the excellent Phantom Motors in Surrey.
Lessons learnt:
Always buy a warranty. I bought one for 2 years at around £5k but I've more than had my money back already with new rear air springs, fuel flap motor, parking brake motor, heating recirc flap and that's before the huge expense of breaking down in France. It covered rental car, repairs to roof and trucking car back home a few weeks later.
2nd lesson: never choose split rim alloys. Unless you know they've never been refurbed you could have a massive can of worms

[enjoythemusic]

Puss,

Had the 19" Mulliner style split rims and yes they had problems. These cars are very heavy so decided no more split rims on a Bentley.

[Tim Farquhar]

AR101, is quite right to be annoyed with the faulty roof on his new GTC. These cars DO cost a lot of money, and should provide years of trouble free motoring. However, as I found to my cost, and as we have seen from posts on here, Bentley motor cars are probably some of the most unreliable vehicles made. I will never put my money their way again.

[Byteme]

Tim Farquhar said:

AR101, is quite right to be annoyed with the faulty roof on his new GTC. These cars DO cost a lot of money, and should provide years of trouble free motoring. However, as I found to my cost, and as we have seen from posts on here, Bentley motor cars are probably some of the most unreliable vehicles made. I will never put my money their way again.

How would you define "a lot of money"? You should check out new Drop head Continental prices in the early '90's when all you got was a slam hood that you had to latch manually.

Mass produced simple cars are cheaper than bigger more complex cars built in limited numbers. The "lot of money argument" holds no water outside customer service.

All machines are prone to breakdown and complex mechanisms employ numerous mechanisms that feed back data to an ECU that decides whether it is safe to continue with a procedure or better to stop it. I once travelled to Bangkok to repair a Corniche IV hood that didn't have the monitoring systems currently fitted - they didn't exist. This car needed replacement of significant parts damaged because there was no mechanism to monitor their function when they operated outside of parameters.

The GTC is produced in far larger numbers and, in real terms, far less cost. Every aspect of the overall quality is far better as is the driving experience. I've never seen a significant or costly failure of a GTC hood mechanism.

[Lockhouse]

Hi

Apologies for hijacking this thread.

Have you seen this?

http://robisonservice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/troub...

I'm looking for a GTC at the moment and found it quite concerning.

Cheers,

Andy

[Byteme]

I suspect a lot of the issues mentioned are most likely to be due to the number of times the hood is cycled in environments that favour top down motoring.

[zubair]

Why so many excuses for Bentley built quality .i have owned few of these and also the Rolls Royce phantom the built quality on these cars is very poor and also the reliability is a major concern i am amazed how they are able to command so much just for the name

[matt5791]

zubair said:

Why so many excuses for Bentley built quality .i have owned few of these and also the Rolls Royce phantom the built quality on these cars is very poor and also the reliability is a major concern i am amazed how they are able to command so much just for the name

I think because they are built to a very cheap price - taking into account: build numbers, reduced economies of scale and the huge complexity of the cars, a GTC at £140K, or whatever they are, is cheap for what you are getting. Especially when you compare to the cost of a Bentley Continental from 25 years ago (£170,000 = c. £400K in today's money, probably)

[Byteme]

It's also worth remembering that if a 25 year old Continental or Corniche had an everflex covering its expected life span was only about five years.