TVR are unreliable – really? It does not have to be!
Discussion
So I came back from the Le Mans Classic trip almost 1700 kms in my 1996 TVR Chimaera 500 (1050 miles) in 5 days of including 2 hours traffic jam the M25 on Thursday, 2hours traffic jam on the Thursday afternoon on the French motorway at over 30 degrees heat (a part was closed due to a lorry accident), many, many kms at between 160 – 200 km/h (on private roads of course) and 25 minutes of total spanking on the Le Mans Tracks… and guess what, no issue at all.
All other people in my party 2008 Lamborghini, 2008 Aston Martin, 1967 Porsche 912 & 1968 Porsche 912 all had some kind off issues / break down… The Triumph motorbike had not issue at all either.
P222TVR has now done 3 x Le Mans Classic Trips (2012, 2014 & 2016) without having any issue.
Morality of the story:
- A well looked after (she only has 40k miles / has full TVR service history and usually change what Str8Six tells me to change / she is garaged when not driven / does only 2 – 3k miles a year, but newer stays more than 2 month without being used, even in the winter) TVR can be reliable.
- In 3 Le Mans Classic trips, the most “unreliable brand of car” on paper (urban myth) in our party has always been more reliable in practice.
- My TVR is not the shiniest one, but she’s pretty fast and amazingly reliable.
On the other hand, we had a comprehensible set of tools end consumables, 2 French guys in the party (me & another one: useful when looking for parts (spark plugs / fuel lines / filters / jubilee clips…) and always take a mechanic with you: we had our really own fellow Chimaera own Dave Byron, who as usual, saved the day and got all cars to Le Mans and Back the way they should: driven by their owners (and not on the back of a flatbed truck).
Another successful Le Mans Classic trip,
Frenchie!
PS:
- I have now jinxed it, you’ll see me broken down on the side of the road on one of the next outings (hopefully not)
- 5 years of ownership, 12,000 miles and only one break down (she did not start due to a dead battery & tried to set herself alight: split fuel hose, but quick reaction & fire extinguisher saved the bacon with only the fuel line to replace and a god old clean up (she really was full of white powder…)
All other people in my party 2008 Lamborghini, 2008 Aston Martin, 1967 Porsche 912 & 1968 Porsche 912 all had some kind off issues / break down… The Triumph motorbike had not issue at all either.
P222TVR has now done 3 x Le Mans Classic Trips (2012, 2014 & 2016) without having any issue.
Morality of the story:
- A well looked after (she only has 40k miles / has full TVR service history and usually change what Str8Six tells me to change / she is garaged when not driven / does only 2 – 3k miles a year, but newer stays more than 2 month without being used, even in the winter) TVR can be reliable.
- In 3 Le Mans Classic trips, the most “unreliable brand of car” on paper (urban myth) in our party has always been more reliable in practice.
- My TVR is not the shiniest one, but she’s pretty fast and amazingly reliable.
On the other hand, we had a comprehensible set of tools end consumables, 2 French guys in the party (me & another one: useful when looking for parts (spark plugs / fuel lines / filters / jubilee clips…) and always take a mechanic with you: we had our really own fellow Chimaera own Dave Byron, who as usual, saved the day and got all cars to Le Mans and Back the way they should: driven by their owners (and not on the back of a flatbed truck).
Another successful Le Mans Classic trip,
Frenchie!
PS:
- I have now jinxed it, you’ll see me broken down on the side of the road on one of the next outings (hopefully not)
- 5 years of ownership, 12,000 miles and only one break down (she did not start due to a dead battery & tried to set herself alight: split fuel hose, but quick reaction & fire extinguisher saved the bacon with only the fuel line to replace and a god old clean up (she really was full of white powder…)
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