First Steer - Bentley Mulsanne Turbo
Discussion
Bluebottle911 said:
The sad fact is you will never be my age! 
You've lost me there 
Have you seen my death clock? Or perhaps you just expect me to go out in a blazing fireball, something a bit more than a category D
Or do you mean you're so ancient you have a painting up in the attic, or drink the blood of virgins?
Edited by Balmoral Green on Thursday 14th January 17:25
Bjerke said:
There are only two solutions to tackling this difficulty. Either a purchaser pays a premium price for an example with the perfect service history, and maintains it to the same degree thereafter. Alternatively, a purchaser settles for an example where the service history is less than complete, but has sufficient budget remaining to 'break the cycle' so as to complete the required maintenance to the necessary level.
Or the third way, which can work for some. Buy a snotter and continue to neglect it, as have the last dozen owners. But that's a little like Russian roulette, it could be your chamber. I think they fetch about £1000 - £2000 to break.
Sounds like I need to be on the look out for a late series one car.
I think I need to find a Turbo R to drive. I have to admit i'd prefer a wafty barge rather than something harsh riding, but i'm not interested in the adaptive damping setup - the GTO had something similar in concept, the ECS Tour/Sport Suspension, controlled from a button on the dash, or overridden by the ECS ECU to go into 'Sport' if certain conditions were exceeded (sharp acceleration/hard cornering etc). Disposed of in favour of a Bilstein setup on mine.
One other fault that i've just remembered with the Mulsanne I drove is the digital clock - some of the lights inside had failed. Is this a common fault, and can replacement clocks be obtained?
I think I need to find a Turbo R to drive. I have to admit i'd prefer a wafty barge rather than something harsh riding, but i'm not interested in the adaptive damping setup - the GTO had something similar in concept, the ECS Tour/Sport Suspension, controlled from a button on the dash, or overridden by the ECS ECU to go into 'Sport' if certain conditions were exceeded (sharp acceleration/hard cornering etc). Disposed of in favour of a Bilstein setup on mine.
One other fault that i've just remembered with the Mulsanne I drove is the digital clock - some of the lights inside had failed. Is this a common fault, and can replacement clocks be obtained?
Balmoral Green said:
Bluebottle911 said:
The sad fact is you will never be my age!
You've lost me there Have you seen my death clock? Or perhaps you just expect me to go out in a blazing fireball, something a bit more than a category D
Or do you mean you're so ancient you have a painting up in the attic, or drink the blood of virgins?
Edited by Balmoral Green on Thursday 14th January 17:25
Not sure about the blood of virgins . . .
One other way of breaking the cycle is when you buy it from a dealer with a warts and all warranty for (say) 60 days.
This is long enough to get every little job done to your satisfaction and although top $ has been paid upon purchase the car should (should) be bomb proof for a good while.
Im just waiting on some door strike adjustment and I have accepted the heated rear window will never be as good as it should be (why?) apart from that its lovely and my daily driver apart from in the snow when I bottled it
This is long enough to get every little job done to your satisfaction and although top $ has been paid upon purchase the car should (should) be bomb proof for a good while.
Im just waiting on some door strike adjustment and I have accepted the heated rear window will never be as good as it should be (why?) apart from that its lovely and my daily driver apart from in the snow when I bottled it
Coming rather late to this post, but I have acquired a 1990 Turbo R that I (now) discover has had the 'active-ride' warning disabled. I am presently in the diagnosis stage, but I rather fear the 'disabler' had done so to obscure a damping problem before passing the car on. Mine seems to have a acquired a soft ride, made uncomfortable when the rpad wheels react violently to the next pothole!
Blubottle911 mentioned his understanding that a system fault resulted in a 'medium' ride, however I have read elsewhere that the system is supposed to default to a 'hard' ride. Any thoughts anyone?
Does anyone know whether there is a way of defaulting the ride to medium, or even arriving at a 'manual' system (assuming that the problem is the computer side of the system rather than the damper side)?
Blubottle911 mentioned his understanding that a system fault resulted in a 'medium' ride, however I have read elsewhere that the system is supposed to default to a 'hard' ride. Any thoughts anyone?
Does anyone know whether there is a way of defaulting the ride to medium, or even arriving at a 'manual' system (assuming that the problem is the computer side of the system rather than the damper side)?
Keith,
I also have a '90 Turbo R. Had a '96 and an '89 prior. Anywhoo, your best bet is to find someone with a Rolls-Royce Mastercheck system and have them sort it out. I'm in the US so I can't be of much help in suggesting someone near you but I know there are several RR/B indies there such as;
-Phantom Motors (highly regarded by several on here)
-Hillier Hill
-Nigel Sandell
etc...
Good luck. I've not been *fortunate* enough to experience trouble with the Active Ride on either of my cars which utilize it so I've no idea what stiffness the system defaults to in fault.
Cheers,
Aaron
hello all,
this is my first post on PH so i hope it's constructive.
i have had a 1990 turbo r for 5 years,when i bought it one of several problems was the "active ride" it would change mode when it felt like it. the first problem that i found was a broken wire on a front damper, it took quite a lot of wiggling about while doing a simple continuity test to find it as the break was internal so not detectable with a visual inspection. a simple remaking of the wire cost next to nothing. the other problem was the active ride computer, the accelerometers are know to go out of kilter as they age and stop responding as they should to movement of the car, after i had my computer box refurbished for about £250 all has been ok. so if your dampers are functional then it does'nt have to be a bank breaker to fix it.
cheers
phil
this is my first post on PH so i hope it's constructive.
i have had a 1990 turbo r for 5 years,when i bought it one of several problems was the "active ride" it would change mode when it felt like it. the first problem that i found was a broken wire on a front damper, it took quite a lot of wiggling about while doing a simple continuity test to find it as the break was internal so not detectable with a visual inspection. a simple remaking of the wire cost next to nothing. the other problem was the active ride computer, the accelerometers are know to go out of kilter as they age and stop responding as they should to movement of the car, after i had my computer box refurbished for about £250 all has been ok. so if your dampers are functional then it does'nt have to be a bank breaker to fix it.
cheers
phil
Here are my feelings on the three Turbo Rs I've been caretaker of;
First car: 1989 model (20,000 series) so no Active Ride (the car calls it Auto Ride), but with FI and ABS. 15" wheels with "baloon" tires. I didn't have anything against which to gauge the ride and handling of this car against since it was my first TR and my only other Bentley ownership experience until then was a '67 T1 in which I almost wafted out of control in one day on my way to the grocery
needless to say, it was *comfortable* but handled like the Titanic. Anywhoo, the ride of the '89 was good, not harsh and boomy like my next one, a '96 would be, although I felt it did waft a bit more than I would have liked, and felt that the performance wasn't up to the hype I'd heard. Of course, I was 27 and not nearly as wise as I am now (at 31, lol) but nevertheless, the car was in absolutely stunning condition---was Tudor Red over Magnolia, piped Red and had come from good, caring ownership. I kept it for maybe a year and sold it on (regrettably now). Then I went for a '96 SWB (50,000 series). Performance-wise, the car did come close to living up to the hype, as the Transient Boost made quite a difference, although I did get owned by my buddy's ML500 Mercedes in a friendly drag race (man was that an ego crusher
). The ride was very harsh and crashy over bad road surfaces. Additionally, I did not like the modern exterior aesthetics such as the Ferrari-esque mirrors and the more squat grille. Also the auto dimming rear view mirror inside was huge enough to cause quite a blind spot and looked like it was plucked out of a Lincoln Town Car. Furthermore, I didn't care for the center console and the chintzy ashtray which sprung out of the fascia most violently and cheap-soundingly (I had an iPod connection in there). Not to mention, I was the unlucky one to "break the cycle" on that car. In my year of ownership, it cost me $12.7K to put it right, and that was doing ALL of the work myself! After selling that one on (and fortunately making all but $2K of my money back), I decided that the car I should have bought all along, a 30,000 series, was the one to have. It had the best of both worlds as far as I was concerned; Classical aesthetics but with Active Ride to help the handling on those tall tires. Sure enough, my present car, a '90 model (see pics in the "Me new Smoker" thread) has been a true delight. It has a good service history, although I will perform a major fluid service to get a baseline from which to continue on, and do need to give the brakes a quick bleed (there's a bit of a delay before they engage after you depress the pedal), but otherwise, the car is exactly what I think a Turbo R should be. Sure, it's not as fast as the '96, but after that ML500 smoked me, I realized that *for what they are, Turbo Rs ARE fast, but can't compare to a modern car in terms of who walks who in a straight line run*, so I gave up on the idea of having a Bentley that will outrun about anything as I can't afford a Conti T
but also realized that I need to appreciate them for what they are and so the classical appearance with that little bit of oomph when you feel like it is what a Turbo R is all about. Forget drag racing and all that baloney....take it out on a nice run, get her up to temp, and remember that you're in the car that effectively saved Bentley Motors from redundancy and most of all be thankful you're one of the few who appreciate them and are fortunate enough to be endowed with the task of being their custodian 
Cheers,
Aaron
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