05 T350 Test Drive

[bumcrack]

I test drove a 05 T350 yesterday to check out if the round of quality control improvements brought in by the new owners had made any difference to the final product and I have to say it has.

Took out a black T350 for a little run round Harrogate for about 40 minuets in the rain on bumpy and smooth roads to get a feel for the improved car.

I'll draw comparisons to my 02 Tamora and to my current car a 996 Porsche for a point of reference.
The improvements which were most obvious were the better ride and the improved cabin. The ride is now more complaint over rough surfaces and the suspension filters out the drain covers cambers and pot holes much better than my Tamora ever did. The suspension is less crash and generally feels more solid and produces less clatter. It does still feel very stiff however and is just a bit to stiff on B roads to get the power down sometimes, this is only on the bumpy stuff though.
The steering is more or less the same as my old car and has great feed back and weight as before, but I feel it's too pointy sometimes. Combine the rough roads and pointy steering together and I struggled to drive at 60 on a B road on my test route. The car didn't seem to flow and I had to make constant corrections, it just seemed like hard work. The 996 would have soaked up the road better and would have been quicker and with much less effort.

The cabin is better than my 02 model Tamora too, it’s just more solid, better built and I think some of the materials are high quality with less creak, on the surfaces the cabins improved, had quick look under the steering column and the wires and some of the various components were still loose and not fixed to anything, just hanging, seemed a bit rough, but a lot better than before. The noise inside the cabin is quieter, with less resonance and seemed much less vibration generally.

After the ride and the cabin quality, the issue I was interested in was the fitting of the windows and doors, I’d hoped that TVR would improve this area and actually make a window fit inside a fame properly , for a few reasons, namely wind noise, sleeker aero effect and better resistance from water leaks. When you close the door the window just pushes against the rubber seal attached to the windscreen frame, roof and rear section (sorry I don’t know the correct terms for these areas). So you have a gap between the windscreen frame and the leading edge of the glass in the door of up to inch in some places. Is it to much to ask for a window that actually fits in to a frame properly? You’d get much less wind noise and a better seal if the windows closed in a frame.

Overall the cars an improvement compared to my 02 Tamora in some important areas, ride and cabin quality, but I still think it’s to stiff and makes hard work of B roads, the SP6 is a great engine and I loved the rev hungry nature, get the revs up and it really produces some serious grunt, but unless you’ve got smooth roads you can’t get the power down in the T350 very well imo.

For about 40K you now get A/C, 18's and a decent paint, plus 3 year warranty. Tempting









>>> Edited by bumcrack on Thursday 31st March 12:32

[_DeeJay_]

Or for 6k more you can get a Sagaris which handles much, much better (see other thread!).

D

[rjben]

Great review, very interesting. It’s a shame that TVR have still not sorted out ‘B’ road edginess. Also a shame about poor window fit and wind noise. These where 2 of the reasons that I sold my Cerbera. Even with Nitrons it felt too nervous to make any serious progress over the rougher surfaces.

I glad to hear that they are moving in the right direction though. When they fix these problems I’ll come back to the fold.

Thanks,

Rob

[ianf]

I have never understood why they have persisted with the window sealing against the soft rubber. It looks such a simple thing to have the window close into a fixed overlap i.e like BMW do on the Coupe.

[targarama]

My T350 has no noise from the side windows, even at xxx mph on the autobahn. Should just be a case of adjustment.

They are indeed a little sensitive, but I actually like a little of this, it makes the car feel alive and stops me going faster than I probably would be able to stop safely if something happened.

I took a Sagaris for a good long back road drive today. Definitely less fidgety than a T350/Tamora, but IMO not the revelation some people are talking about. Maybe the suspension on my T350 is well aligned, but jumping straight from the dealer's saggy into my car and coming home on the exact same road, my car was more sensitive and felt stiffer (although I know the saggy is much stiffer actually), but my car covered the ground just as fast and with just as much enjoyment.

This is IMO, don't flame me. I don't think a saggy is 10k better than a T350. I actually think some of the TVR spirit has gone from the driving experience.

I still love the saggy (esp as the dealers was the same colour as mine - looked great), but I don't feel short changed in a T350 whatsoever.