Post rebuild engines

[unrepentant]

justinp1 said:

I think unrep's survey is good. However we do need to take into account any factors which may affect this result compared to the 'official figures'. These would be a survey of every owner. The survey counts the 'thumbs up' and 'thumbs down' marks on each owners cars. To be frank, I for one dont even know which is on mine, and for that reason I dont think it is representative of what I think now.

My "survey" took 20 minutes and involved me doing no more than counting thumbs. It was not meant to be a scientific analysis of the SP6. The point I was making was a simple one: An outsider reading some of the threads on here would imagine that (as G20RG B pointed out) most owners had had a horrendous experience with their cars, whereas the opposite is true. Most of the negativity on here comes from people who have not owned the cars.

[justinp1]

unrepentant said:

...Most of the negativity on here comes from people who have not owned the cars.

Hmm, I would say that most of the negativity that p1sses you off is from people who have not owned that cars. However, a good proportion of the people who have negative opinions, or indeed report a factual account of their ownership which may be seen as negative are current or previous owners.

The problem lies in the fact that the by nature the human mind is very poor at creating quantitative statistics from qualitative events.

For example, unless you physically counted it would be almost impossible to account for how many black cars you saw on a three hour drive. Most intelligent peoples educated guess will be not even in the right ballpark and most likely to a factor of 3, 5 or ten times out.

There is no way of untricking the human mind into not remembering and prioritising what it has just seen in comparison to what it has seen in the past. For example the best baseball manager in the US never watches a match. He picks his potential players and team purely on statistics, and doesnt want to have his illogical human mind messing up his objective (and very successful) system.

In the same way, the only way you can present quantitative representation to a new owner would be to conduct a detailed survey and ensure that it was completed in a fair way with a representative field. I understood that this was not your intention Unrepentant, however it seemed as if this was a comeback against the number of people who have complained of engine problems.

I would suggest that a potential owner takes on board both the good and bad views of ownership. I am lucky enough to have both, for example! However, I would also suggest if people are looking to get a quantitative view of ownership so that a potential buyer could guess their chances of either enjoying the experience or needing a rebuild for example, they should look at the 'the results are in Speed 6 reliability' thread.

The problem I feel comes when a potential buyer and new member will start a thread such as 'I have heard a lot about the SP6 being unreliable...'. Naturally in that situation it will get a flood of responses good and bad. I dont think we are ever going to get away from that.

[unrepentant]

Thats a bit deep for me at this time of night Justin. (And after a bottle of red and several scotches. )

I know that you all think I'm an apologist for TVR but I'm not. I have tried to help several people with difficulties offline and I was very pissed off about the pod fiasco on the Tuscan 2 which is why, with Lady Topaz, I spent a lot of my own time trying to sort it out, including taking a day out to go to Blackpool. And we battered away at them over that, I can tell you.

I have the utmost sympathy for anyone who has had issues with their cars and I have never (to my knowledge) criticised anyone who has posted their issues up on here.

I am simply sick and tired (and so are lots of others)with disinterested parties using these forums to bash the SP6 in a gratuitous way with no personal experience of the cars whatsoever. Constructive (negative or positive) discussion is fine. "The SP6 is a Dog" type of contribution is not helpful at all. (IMO)

[SXS]

unrepentant said:

I am simply sick and tired (and so are lots of others)with disinterested parties using these forums to bash the SP6 in a gratuitous way with no personal experience of the cars whatsoever. Constructive (negative or positive) discussion is fine. "The SP6 is a Dog" type of contribution is not helpful at all. (IMO)

Well said.
Flipside is, if we bite the "SP6 is a Dog" type of contributors, we create a bad impression, right? That impression then leaks out, the said contributors then go off spreading the word, and before you know it, their backup arrives... I think its best to just let those kind of contributors say their piece and to either just put a single "rolleyes" or nothing at all....????

We all know how people take advantage of forums by having the audacity to say things they would never contemplate saying public in fear of getting the living daylights knocked out of them... thats another thing to bear in mind, some posters I've seen make some insane posts over on Pie & Piston, I guess this forum is some kind of stress reliever for quite a few. Only problem is, do we take them seriously and get caught up in agro, or do we just ignore it?

I had this idea... I think there should be a post rating... just a little +/- under the name with the current rating starting at Neutral, when something like 30 negatives are clicked altogether by 30 different members, then the post can automatically hide the content, still show it is there, but just not show the content, then a mod etc can at will choose to reset the count or not.... an idea?
So community managed to a certain degree but the mods still have the final say?

[russian rocket]

there is a Tusc S 2002 owner lives locally to me I meet him from time to time

he uses his car daily like me. He has had a cluch problem but nil ee

He loves his car.

He never reads these pages anymore as he got pissed off with all the negativity

I suspect the SP6 is more reliable than surveys here reveal

Later engines in particular seem better (early days but rebuilds at v.low milage have gone)

It's a High perforance engine (100bhp/l) Lot's people dont appriciate the significance of this. By it's nature it will never be as reliable as an econobox.

I love my car

[jsr]

Feel quite bad starting this topic. I only had a straight forward question wanting to now a bit more about rebuilt engines. Wasn't commenting on the reliability of the engine in anyway, just wanted to know what should be expected of any engine that has had a rebuild.

Whilst there were a few helpful replies at the start, it seems people lose track of what the original question was and we end up with the usual negative unhelpful replies.

Still, it's no different than posting a topic in the Chimaera forum about a 4 litre car - that soon degenerates to replies like 'the 4 litre is slow', or 'the chimaera doesn't handle', and that's before it gets invaded by the Jap Chat people claiming their Mk2 twin turbo MR2 is faster.

These are great forums for info and advice, especially on technical problems, but far too much of the time it all turns into a slagging match and it really pisses me off.

[sxs]

jsr said:

These are great forums for info and advice, especially on technical problems, but far too much of the time it all turns into a slagging match and it really pisses me off.

Welcome to the virtual world of forums! You should see the other forums, especially over the waters in happy old USA.... Pistonheads is doing a bloody good job keeping things in order compared to most motoring/club forums....

Its funny you mention that MR2 vs Chimaera topic... thing is, in reality how often does someone come up to a TVR owner and claim mines-faster-than-yours twaddle? Very rarely, and if it happens, you'd normally just ignore it, right?
Problem on these forums is, people are sitting down in the luxury of their homes and get to type whatever they want, when in reality if words were spoken wrongly to the wrong person, you'd both very soon end up in the lockup for the night or worse... (guess why the luton jap meets were made illegal!)

Motoring is fun, there shouldnt be political correctness and politics on these forums, but in this day and age it cant be avoided... maybe Pistonheads needs a PC officer, just like the government are doing....

>> Edited by sxs on Sunday 8th January 13:55