Tell me about British Leyland
Discussion
2xChevrons said:
My family were BL (and related) buyers from 1947 (when Dad's dad bought an old Morris 8E when he was de-mobbed from the Navy) to 1995 when my Dad replaced his Rover 800 Sterling with a Mercedes W124. He's still got several BL products as classics, as do I.
In something like 30 cars bought over nearly 50 years there was only one 'dog', which was my grandfather's very early Austin Metro. It was absolutely riddled with problems and spent most of its first year back at the dealer having something like three different gearboxes fitted, as well as endless carburettor trouble, duff Hydragas units, electrical niggles and flaky trim (the latches on the front seats were particularly troublesome, IIRC) fixed. My Dad's second Rover Sterling (the one that was replaced by the Merc) blew out a big-end bearing and came to an oily, steamy halt in the middle of Yeovil. But that was a Honda V6 and Dad repaired the engine himself and kept the car, which was otherwise completely trouble-free.
My family had Minis almost continuously from 1960 to 1994, so that's Mk1s, Mk2s, Mk3s and Mk4s, a couple of Travellers and a 1275GT. There were a couple of ADO16s (a Morris 1100 and a Wolseley 1300), a Princess 2200, some chrome-bumper MGB (roadster, GT and GT V8), a Triumph Stag, an Austin Allegro 1300, three Maestros (Austin 1300 City, 1600 Vdp and MG 2.0 Efi), two Montegos (VdP and 2.0GTI estate). None of which gave any trouble - some had snags which were fixed under warranty but none were chronically unreliable or badly-made as the legend would have it.
BUT - that's still a sample of only 30 cars out of the tens of millions that British Leyland managed to push out the doors when their wasn't a strike on.
Taken as the bigger picture BL products (let's keep it to the 'proper' BL years of 1968-1982) were woeful, and that's at a time when all cars were much worse and standards were much lower across the board, and in era which included the likes of Chrysler Europe, not to mention 1970s Italian products, 1970s Detroit and 1970s Eastern Bloc. Probably only the latter really managed to be consistently as bad as BL when it came to quality control. The Italians and the Japanese had BL beaten in the rust stakes, but their cars generally worked for the five years it took for them to fizz into nothing. BL products tended to last (a bit) longer but could be endless trouble from the moment they left the factory to the moment they went to the scrapyard. *
It's not just a case of poor build quality and quality control by indifferent workers and a production chain disrupted by strikes and shortages, although that never helped. For instance in the 1970s the Mini production line at Longbridge spent 10% of its time working at its planned speed. For 90% of the time it was either stopped or it was working over-speed to make up for lost production from the stoppages. So when the workers weren't hanging around Q Gate with placards they were slapping the cars together as quickly as possible. And it didn't have to be a BL strike. If one of the big suppliers (Lucas or Pilkington, say) went on strike then BL could either stop its own line when the supplies ran out (which lost the company production and revenue, and sending the workforce home could often precipitate a strike of your own!) or send cars to dealers without their lamp units or windows. These parts would be sent on when they were available. So much of your new car could in fact not have been built at the factory, but by untrained, under-resourced and frustrated dealer mechanics.
Beyond the labour relation problems (which were endemic throughout British industry and were as much as symptom of the underlying problems as they were a cause), BL was massively under-resourced, which led to corner-cutting in design and engineering, a lack of proper testing and development and a complete inability to keep pace with the changes in the industry even if they wanted to (which they generally did - BL's problem wasn't that it didn't know what to do, but that it couldn't do it). When it was formed BL made 21 distinct car models, but had only half the capital of Renault, which made four models. On a turnover of something tlike £950 million in 1969 BL only made a profit of £20 million, which wouldn't even fund the development of the Morris Marina (a deliberately basic, conventional to the point of old-fashioned, parts-bin special car).
[*]One of my Dad's rare divergences from the BL stable was to buy a brand new Alfa Romeo Alfasud 1.5Ti QV. It needed welding for its first MoT. It needed welding for its second MoT. It needed new front wings for its third MoT. It needed welding for its fourth MoT. So he sold it. Even the worst of his 1970s-BL-in-full-crisis-Mk3 Minis weren't that bad!
That was a really interesting read In something like 30 cars bought over nearly 50 years there was only one 'dog', which was my grandfather's very early Austin Metro. It was absolutely riddled with problems and spent most of its first year back at the dealer having something like three different gearboxes fitted, as well as endless carburettor trouble, duff Hydragas units, electrical niggles and flaky trim (the latches on the front seats were particularly troublesome, IIRC) fixed. My Dad's second Rover Sterling (the one that was replaced by the Merc) blew out a big-end bearing and came to an oily, steamy halt in the middle of Yeovil. But that was a Honda V6 and Dad repaired the engine himself and kept the car, which was otherwise completely trouble-free.
My family had Minis almost continuously from 1960 to 1994, so that's Mk1s, Mk2s, Mk3s and Mk4s, a couple of Travellers and a 1275GT. There were a couple of ADO16s (a Morris 1100 and a Wolseley 1300), a Princess 2200, some chrome-bumper MGB (roadster, GT and GT V8), a Triumph Stag, an Austin Allegro 1300, three Maestros (Austin 1300 City, 1600 Vdp and MG 2.0 Efi), two Montegos (VdP and 2.0GTI estate). None of which gave any trouble - some had snags which were fixed under warranty but none were chronically unreliable or badly-made as the legend would have it.
BUT - that's still a sample of only 30 cars out of the tens of millions that British Leyland managed to push out the doors when their wasn't a strike on.
Taken as the bigger picture BL products (let's keep it to the 'proper' BL years of 1968-1982) were woeful, and that's at a time when all cars were much worse and standards were much lower across the board, and in era which included the likes of Chrysler Europe, not to mention 1970s Italian products, 1970s Detroit and 1970s Eastern Bloc. Probably only the latter really managed to be consistently as bad as BL when it came to quality control. The Italians and the Japanese had BL beaten in the rust stakes, but their cars generally worked for the five years it took for them to fizz into nothing. BL products tended to last (a bit) longer but could be endless trouble from the moment they left the factory to the moment they went to the scrapyard. *
It's not just a case of poor build quality and quality control by indifferent workers and a production chain disrupted by strikes and shortages, although that never helped. For instance in the 1970s the Mini production line at Longbridge spent 10% of its time working at its planned speed. For 90% of the time it was either stopped or it was working over-speed to make up for lost production from the stoppages. So when the workers weren't hanging around Q Gate with placards they were slapping the cars together as quickly as possible. And it didn't have to be a BL strike. If one of the big suppliers (Lucas or Pilkington, say) went on strike then BL could either stop its own line when the supplies ran out (which lost the company production and revenue, and sending the workforce home could often precipitate a strike of your own!) or send cars to dealers without their lamp units or windows. These parts would be sent on when they were available. So much of your new car could in fact not have been built at the factory, but by untrained, under-resourced and frustrated dealer mechanics.
Beyond the labour relation problems (which were endemic throughout British industry and were as much as symptom of the underlying problems as they were a cause), BL was massively under-resourced, which led to corner-cutting in design and engineering, a lack of proper testing and development and a complete inability to keep pace with the changes in the industry even if they wanted to (which they generally did - BL's problem wasn't that it didn't know what to do, but that it couldn't do it). When it was formed BL made 21 distinct car models, but had only half the capital of Renault, which made four models. On a turnover of something tlike £950 million in 1969 BL only made a profit of £20 million, which wouldn't even fund the development of the Morris Marina (a deliberately basic, conventional to the point of old-fashioned, parts-bin special car).
[*]One of my Dad's rare divergences from the BL stable was to buy a brand new Alfa Romeo Alfasud 1.5Ti QV. It needed welding for its first MoT. It needed welding for its second MoT. It needed new front wings for its third MoT. It needed welding for its fourth MoT. So he sold it. Even the worst of his 1970s-BL-in-full-crisis-Mk3 Minis weren't that bad!
Olivera said:
Raygun said:
mikal83 said:
When Jap cars starting coming over they were called japcrap...........guess who had the last laugh
I think you'll find Jap cars had a worse problem for rust than BL cars from that eraHe replaced it with a 4 year old Marina - no such issues.
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