Tamora in Britin's Best Drivers Car 2002 - Autocar
Discussion
I too hate having to suffer the same old tedious comments about reliability as I am, like many of you, a real fan of TVR and it's products. However... i work for an (american owned) british luxury car manufacturer (answers on a postcard to...) in a department that tries to ensure that the cars we send out to our customers are the best that we can make them. we've recently had to can a very exciting new car because we were under-resourced for the products we were already producing. my point is i'd prefer to see TVR spending their time addressing the issues with their current cars (that they must know about) than see a new concept model on the stand at the motorshow. If they spent some more money and time on improving the quality of the existing products we'd all be better of. TVR included.
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I too hate having to suffer the same old tedious comments about reliability as I am, like many of you, a real fan of TVR and it's products. However... i work for an (american owned) british luxury car manufacturer (answers on a postcard to...) we've recently had to can a very exciting new car because we were under-resourced for the products we were already producing.
Real shame about the F-Type, in original guise it was a beauty....
Sorry Ted for opening up old war wounds. The smell of napalm always haunts me in the mornings!
I agree that Tiff seems to be able to break anything, but nothing else he drove seemed to break that day and if I look back at my Autocar for their Annual Roadtest review it always seems to feature a broken TVR.
Agreed that at least if TVR go to one engine for all their models we stand a chance of them getting it right, but will this be before or after they go bust?
I love my Griff (not in that way!) but I sure as hell won't be rushing to buy a new model. Even my local dealer is not exactly pushing the Tamora because he knows he will get shedloads of problems and he already has a workshop full of broken Tuscans. He summed it up perfectly by saying that TVR warranty work does not pay very well!
End of the Sermon for Today. Tomorrows will be entitled "Surfing, not Working, a sackable offence!"
Richard
I agree that Tiff seems to be able to break anything, but nothing else he drove seemed to break that day and if I look back at my Autocar for their Annual Roadtest review it always seems to feature a broken TVR.
Agreed that at least if TVR go to one engine for all their models we stand a chance of them getting it right, but will this be before or after they go bust?
I love my Griff (not in that way!) but I sure as hell won't be rushing to buy a new model. Even my local dealer is not exactly pushing the Tamora because he knows he will get shedloads of problems and he already has a workshop full of broken Tuscans. He summed it up perfectly by saying that TVR warranty work does not pay very well!
End of the Sermon for Today. Tomorrows will be entitled "Surfing, not Working, a sackable offence!"
Richard
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TVR let themselves down by not supplying a sorted fresh car for this test. As anyone who was at Donnington will testify my car was amazingly quick round there and it had bugger all to do with my ability..
Sorry got to disagree a bit, none of the other cars blew up and any tvr that is only a couple of months off the production line should have withstood a few laps of goodwood without blowing up. They should not need to provide a special one which wont blow up, perhaps they need to restrict the revs or the power a bit, but one way or another the engine should last at least 80-100k without the major cost of a rebuild! I dont think there is any other make where it would be tolerated.
Its all wrong on this thread that there are lists of those few that havent had a blow up, if you compared this to Boxster S owners then you would probably be hard pressed to find more than a handful of people that had any sort of mechanical problem.
sorry to say it but on a 40-55k car it is totally unacceptable in this modern age.
Bennno
Cheers Bennno , no one else had thought of that ... or heard it before ...
Clearly the early speed 6 tuscans had some hideous problems, and no one in their right mind would claim that was acceptable, even to TVR owners.
It certainly seems that in recent months the number of complaints has tailed off. I'd assumed that all the early, weak engines had finally all gone pop. Seems to me it has been fairly rare to hear of Tamora engines going bang.
The fact that it was allowed to happen in front of the press like this is extraordinary. Some people should be looking very embarassed, and if they aren't then god help all us customers.
Clearly the early speed 6 tuscans had some hideous problems, and no one in their right mind would claim that was acceptable, even to TVR owners.
It certainly seems that in recent months the number of complaints has tailed off. I'd assumed that all the early, weak engines had finally all gone pop. Seems to me it has been fairly rare to hear of Tamora engines going bang.
The fact that it was allowed to happen in front of the press like this is extraordinary. Some people should be looking very embarassed, and if they aren't then god help all us customers.
Haven't there been a couple of reports of Tamoras having engine problems on this forum? And the majority of TVR owners are in blissful ignorance of this site. TVR100 has gone bang. The big end bearing went on a Tuscan S at Bedford last Friday..... draw your own conclusions.
I'm with others on here. I can live with trim and electric foibles. But not with engine rebuilds (says the man with a bullet proof V8 off to have a new camshaft next week
)
I'm with others on here. I can live with trim and electric foibles. But not with engine rebuilds (says the man with a bullet proof V8 off to have a new camshaft next week
)
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Cheers Bennno , no one else had thought of that ... or heard it before ...
Clearly the early speed 6 tuscans had some hideous problems, and no one in their right mind would claim that was acceptable, even to TVR owners.
It certainly seems that in recent months the number of complaints has tailed off. I'd assumed that all the early, weak engines had finally all gone pop. Seems to me it has been fairly rare to hear of Tamora engines going bang.
The fact that it was allowed to happen in front of the press like this is extraordinary. Some people should be looking very embarassed, and if they aren't then god help all us customers.
I appreciate the concerns of current owners of S6 engined cars, and I accept that some are fine, but I have also heared of one chap on his 5th engine/rebuild in a car less than 2 years old, so I don't believe for a minute that this is an 'early ones' fault. there are major issues with either the design or the components and pretending there is not a serious issue is surely not going to achieve the outcome best for all - a solution and one retrofitted to all cars, like proper car makers do.
These are not trim worries, the are engines. without them the car is an expensive bathtub, TVR need to fix the problem and the attitude. Tiptoeing around them, is going to get us all nowhere, because they will eventually go bust and then there will be no TVR, bonkers south american schemes or no.
Rant off (and I know it has been said before)
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Not having access to Wheeler's account details, but I'm wondering how much warantee work the company can afford to do .. ? If these engines are going to start going bang, and more of the range uses them, well... we'll see....
TVR do recover some money from the suppliers of the faulty parts so it isn't all out of their pockets.
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Not exactly good PR though is it? These engines need to be bullet proof if they're to salvage any of their reputation. It's no wonder Tuscan residuals are so shocking.
This was the point I was trying to make, people do (whether it's popular with PH's or not) take notice of what the motoring press have to say if mags like EVO, AutoCar, CAR etc. all say "nice car, bloody fast, sounds gr8 but as reliable as the countries rail network" (guess who commutes everyday !!) then people ARE put off.
While you don't want to offer false expectations by giving the press a blinder of a car then giving the paying customer a lesser car, you still do need to ensure that any chance at good PR is madde the most of (not trying to tell Ben how to do his job here) TVR always seem to shoot themselves in the foot (with the exception of the Tuscan R reports)with their cars blowing up, falling apart or the like.
Yet despite all that i'll still have a nice 4.2 Cerb with Spyders and Speed 12 light conversion !! in fact ANY post Griff TVR would be good !!
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Nubbin, sorry mate - not trying to spoil your fun. It's just that I really want to see this thing nailed once and for all.
Ted,
We probably can't do much to help nail the technical issues down, however we could - should IMO - do something to nail the debate down. So, what about a PH survey where people would select their model and indicate whether they've had any problem with their TVR - say electrics / engine / trim. This could be complemented with a question of the type "would you buy one again?". Such survey could them be repeated for different makes to help provide and interesting comparison.
IMO that would be the best way to nail this down: anyone who would open this debate again could be pointed to the suvey with a "we've talked about it already!"
No I'll pull my toys together and do some ework
Cheers
R
I'm not sure its something that you could accurately capture the data on with a simple poll.
For example, I had plenty of reliability problems when I first bought my Chimaera, mainly centred around the cooling system. However, since having them successfully ironed out I have had 9 or 10 months of trouble-free motoring.
So if I replied to an online poll that simply asked "have you had any problems" then it would be misrepresentative.
The only way it could conceivably work would be as a detailed questionnaire with a number of well-chosen questions to try to capture all the data.
For example, I had plenty of reliability problems when I first bought my Chimaera, mainly centred around the cooling system. However, since having them successfully ironed out I have had 9 or 10 months of trouble-free motoring.
So if I replied to an online poll that simply asked "have you had any problems" then it would be misrepresentative.
The only way it could conceivably work would be as a detailed questionnaire with a number of well-chosen questions to try to capture all the data.
+ I think this fits rather well with Ted's latest rant Newsjam. So far it's all talk with no substance others that a sum of personal experience. PH is the ideal platform to take a step back and get a better idea of the scale of the problem. When you do a survey it is reckoned that 400 hundreds people taking part would give you a +/- 5% reliability, then the number of participant required to gain an extra point soars (from my old stats lectures....).
C'mon Ted
C'mon Ted
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I'm not sure its something that you could accurately capture the data on with a simple poll.
For example, I had plenty of reliability problems when I first bought my Chimaera, mainly centred around the cooling system. However, since having them successfully ironed out I have had 9 or 10 months of trouble-free motoring.
So if I replied to an online poll that simply asked "have you had any problems" then it would be misrepresentative.
The only way it could conceivably work would be as a detailed questionnaire with a number of well-chosen questions to try to capture all the data.
Jon,
This is exactly what I mean. People who buy mew expect to have niggle to fix, whilst people who buy second-hand expect to have all these little things ironed out. Simply ask the people whether they've bought the car new, and for how long they've had it.
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